Fall into the gap.
What sounds more like a jeans commercial are really words to live by for a defense that must stop the run better to keep the Bears’ Super Bowl hopes legitimate.
Overwrought Bears fans who have worn out their TiVos replaying each carry by Miami’s Ronnie Brown or San Francisco’s Frank Gore over their last two big games have heard all about gaps.
Whether it is linebacker Brian Urlacher or defensive coordinator Ron Rivera, Bears players and coaches blame getting out of their gaps for giving up two straight 100-yard games to nice but not elite running backs Brown and Gore.
“It’s the same thing as always: Guys get out of their gaps,” coach Lovie Smith said of recent problems against the run.
“Stay in our gaps,” Urlacher answered when asked how the Bears can slow New York’s Tiki Barber, the NFL’s leading rusher.
They speak with such seriousness about staying in their gaps Sunday night at Giants Stadium that it’s like they’re filming public-service announcements. The Bears talk about gaps more than a seismologist.
What exactly do they mean?
In short, three possible running lanes exist on either side of the center that are labeled the A, B and C gaps–the A gap on each side of the center, the B on the outside of the guards and the C on the outside of the tackle lined up next to the tight end. Each is about a yard wide.
The Bears’ single-gap 4-3 defense, unlike some defenses that use tackles to keep blockers off linebackers, requires smaller, quicker players who get upfield and simply assigns each defender a gap for which he is responsible.
If the player either gets blocked or overpursues the runner trying to rely too much on athleticism to make a play in another gap, he shirks that responsibility. The chain reaction can extend from the defensive line to the secondary, creating cut-back lanes and big plays such as the five runs of 20 or more yards the Bears have surrendered in the last two games. Only four defenses in the NFL have given up more runs of 20-plus yards this season than the Bears with seven.
“A guy like Ronnie Brown or Tiki, they’ll hit their head on the goal post (after a touchdown run) if you jump gaps,” tackle Tank Johnson said. “You have 11 guys all responsible for one gap. If you jump out, it puts the strain on the other guys. We have great players so you can overcome it sometimes by being athletic. But . . . “
To diminish a Giants running game that averages 4.7 yards per carry, discipline will take precedence–especially against Barber, a shiftier version of Thomas Jones whose field vision and patience for waiting for holes to open might be his most dangerous traits.
“The guy we have to stop,” tackle Tommie Harris said.
The other guy is Brandon Jacobs, the 265-pound short-yardage specialist who outweighs every member of the Bears’ starting front seven except Harris and Johnson. Defensive end Alex Brown used the names Eddie George, Jerome Bettis and Earl Campbell in describing Jacobs’ running style. “He’s a complete back who runs downhill and is tough to tackle one-on-one,” Brown said.
Theoretically, it shouldn’t matter to the Bears’ defense whether Barber or Jacobs runs the football if each player occupies his assigned space on every play.
“A lot of it goes back to us being where we’re supposed to be,” Rivera said.
Where exactly is that for each position?
Guessing discouraged
From his position at left tackle, Harris begins each play lined up on the outside shoulder of the guard in the “3” position and quickly glances at how the linemen are distributing their weight to see if he can get a run or pass read. But Harris cannot spend too much time guessing before he gets upfield.
“In this defense, it’s not good to key because we’re supposed to get off the ball before they get off the ball,” Harris said. “We’re not in a read-and-react defense. That might benefit me more if we were, where I could sit there and do things off of what he does. That’s the knock against me. They don’t like me to [guess]. I have to stop doing that.”
One of the quickest defensive linemen in football, Harris has encountered trouble in recent games by relying too much on that quickness and putting himself out of position by trying to make somebody else’s plays.
“I feel like I’ve disappeared since the Seattle game,” Harris said.
To get back in the groove against a runner like Barber will require smarts as much as skill from Harris and fellow tackle Johnson. “Tiki looks for mistakes, so you have to be very, very, very disciplined,” Johnson said.
Defensive ends Adewale Ogunleye and Brown, responsible for securing the edge on runs and supplying the heat on passes, face an even trickier task given Barber’s success on the perimeter. Of Barber’s league-high 830 rushing yards, 338 of them (41 percent) have come outside in the gaps Ogunleye and Brown will cover, according to STATS.
That also concerns Hunter Hillenmeyer, expected to be a key to stopping Barber inside and outside. Hillenmeyer typically leaves on third downs, but 163 of Barber’s 172 carries have come on first or second downs, when the Bears’ strong-side linebacker is still on the field manning the second tier of run defense alongside Urlacher and Lance Briggs. He usually reads the tight end’s first two steps to tell him whether he will be covering a pass route or taking on a blocker.
Blocking Hillenmeyer most of the night will be tight end Jeremy Shockey, a man known for his mouth and his hands but not necessarily his bulk. Hillenmeyer gave one of the league’s most talented and tattooed tight ends credit for a part of the game that often gets overlooked.
“I think early in his career everybody sort of had him pegged that he likes to catch the ball, be in the spotlight and won’t get dirty, but he’s tougher than people think,” Hillenmeyer said.
Safeties help fill gaps
Rookie free safety Danieal Manning will spend most of the night lined up 15 yards deep opposite Shockey on the weak side, trying not to respect the Giants’ run game so much he neglects his primary job of staying deeper than the deepest.
“You may want to get a jump on [a running play], so you bite, and that’s when you see plays in the deep middle of the field–so you can’t get too ready for it,” Manning said.
He keys the quarterback first, checks which way the ball flows and then finds the last man at the line of scrimmage, whether it’s a tight end or tackle, to determine run or pass.
“If a tight end blocks down, then I still have to check because he might be blocking down for a second and releasing if it’s a bootleg [pass],” Manning said. “If it’s a tackle and he’s coming up the field, it’s definitely run.”
Safeties, particularly the strong safety, help fill gaps outside the tackles in the Bears’ scheme and also can help overcome mistakes on the second tier by being instinctive. That’s why the Bears have missed injured Mike Brown against the run as well as the pass. Teams are averaging 144 rushing yards against the Bears in the two games Brown missed compared with 74.5 in the first six he played.
Brown’s absence has placed even more importance on run support for cornerbacks Charles Tillman and Nathan Vasher in the Cover-2. Tillman, the team’s third-leading tackler, excels against the run and is one of the surer tacklers in the secondary. But Vasher, more of a finesse player, missed as many tackles against the Dolphins as any Bear and did not make the Pro Bowl last year based on the way he reacts to running plays.
The two main jobs: turn everything inside, and don’t miss.
“We’re the last line [to] keep it from breaking and hoping it’s negated by the time you get there,” Vasher said. “My eyes are on the quarterback at first and then to the receiver and then he’ll break down and try to block you 8 or 9 yards down the field. Then you have to get off the block. It’s all part of the job.”
Rushing stats skewed
Job 1 of any serious Super Bowl contender, conventional wisdom says, involves stopping the run to control the game. The Colts are challenging that NFL truism this season by giving up a league-worst 165.4 rushing yards per game, which would be the seventh-highest average in NFL history.
“You don’t have to stop the run if you have Peyton Manning,” Bears center Olin Kreutz cracked.
The Bears do not have Peyton Manning. But they also do not believe they have an acute problem stopping the run. They recognize that 53 of Gore’s 111 yards came on one fourth-quarter play, and 46 of Brown’s 157 came on the final series when the score was 28-13.
Kreutz, for example, defended the defense when asked what about single-gap schemes such as the Bears’ make a defense so vulnerable against a good rushing team.
“I don’t think it’s because it’s the fact that it’s a single-gap defense,” Kreutz said. “I think it’s because they go after smaller guys. [The Bears] don’t go after the big run stuffers, and they ask everybody to lose weight. Big guys are run stuffers. Obviously, it’s easier to block somebody who’s 300 pounds than 350 pounds.
“Come on, we’re only giving up [91.9] yards per game.”
That number is in line with the average of the last five Super Bowl winners, who gave up 97.1 rushing yards per game. Only New England’s 2001 defense among that group surrendered more than 100 rushing yards per game, at 115.9.
The 2000 Baltimore Ravens gave up a meager 60.6. The 1985 Bears were only a little less stingy at 82.4.
They’re only numbers, but the 2006 Bears would like to close the gap.
It starts by closing the gaps.
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dhaugh@tribune.com
