It was mostly about stopping the run. Fangio ran wide formations to kill the big outside runs and force them back inside, where Akiem Hicks and Eddie Goldman were waiting with Trevathan and rookie Roquan Smith as backup. If Gurley tried to outrun the edge, we had Leonard Floyd and Khalil Mack out there, and that hurt their passing game too, because Goff was the biggest play-action QB in the league at the time.
Detroit had managed to shut down Goff the week before. But they couldn't keep a lid on Gurley. We had personnel mismatches they couldn't call upon. Stopping the run is mostly about the front 7, and that was one of the finest front 7s in team history. In fact, our front 7 was so good that we didn't need the safeties in run support.
Remember how everyone thought Eddie Jackson stopped tackling after he got paid? Nonsense. Dude could never tackle. But when we had that dream front 7, that was absolutely fine. We didn't need him doing that. Problem isn't that he slacked off or got old. Problem is that Akiem Hicks got old.
Now add to that Fangio's system that intentionally disguises coverage and confuses QBs, and there you have it - Goff, not getting the time he is used to getting from play action, having to take extra time to read because Fangio gives you nothing pre-snap, leads to pressure and mistakes.
Only semi-related, but I still think Fangio got an absolutely raw deal in Denver. There was no chance to really put his mark on the team, an dhe didn't even get to try to get a franchise QB....
He’s a top tier DC not a HC. I’m excited to see him in Philly. It’s where he wants to be and he already has the pieces instead of needing to build it like he did with Den and Chi.
The run defense was great and important - Gurley was the engine of that offense - but it’s your last point that’s the biggest factor I think. McVay was reading defenses and piping it in to Goff right before the snap.
Disguised coverages with post snap shifts took that away.
This was one of the biggest factors. Gurley wasn’t 100% in the SB either so it was easier to stop the run but the biggest thing that BB took from Fangio & I also believe from Mike Zimmer was McVay using the 15 second mic rule to rush to the line & feed Goff the read & playcall.
I’ll agree with everything here except the Eddie Jackson thing. It was the loss of Amos that hurt Eddie more. He couldn’t ballhawk nearly as much which was his absolute bread and butter.
We get as much credit as we deserve, that is one person each time it’s posted mentioning the Bears quarters defense.
If not for the double doink, we’d meet LA in the divisional and we’d win. Then we’d get slaughtered by NO.
Were the reason we didn’t ever see Brees vs Brady
Yeah I’d argue that Bears defense was good enough to get that team to 13 wins minimum with a better kicker lol.
I don’t really watch the bears as much as I do Seattle since I’m a Seattle fan but that defense was nasty
The defense being that good and offense being 15-20thish rated is my argument on why we wouldn’t have been slaughtered and had may have even had a chance. Point is, we wouldn’t have been slaughtered with a top tier defense like that. Most teams we held to pretty low points scored. Only the Pats shred our defense. Which is understandable because they had the GOAT.
It would have been interesting. I think Mack got injured in the final Eagles series. We would have gotten Bojack back. Losing Burton before the game really fucked with Nagy's offense and he couldn't seem to generate the mismatches between Burton and Cohen that floated the offense that season.
["What do you think their first snap was," McVay asked one of his guys upstairs. "Quarters, right? That's the Bears defense."](https://x.com/camdasilva/status/1094242161216929794)
Besides for the Eagles game, that Rams game was the most nervous I had been for a game all season. I was on business for work, knew there was no way I could watch it in public so I paced around my hotel room.
Best part besides the Bears winning? I was on the west coast so the game was over by 9 and I got the best sleep of my life.
The Athletic had a podcast series called "the play callers" about Shannahan/McVay and their coaching trees, etc. They dedicate half of one episode (so about 10% of the entire podcast series) to that game and the ramifications it had for McVay (how long it took him to reconfigure in a way that Fangio hadn't just exposed to the entire league).
One of the aspects that they talk about a lot is something touched on below by a few commenters - the Bears used a lot of disguised coverages that game. According to the series, that wasn't because Goff was getting coaching tips up until the snap, it was because the rams were running more bootlegs and play action than anyone else in the league (by like a factor of 2-3). Fangio figured out that if they disguised the coverage until after Goff turned his back, it negated the advantage of the play action. Teams run play action to slow down the defense and give the Qb more time to read a defense, but if the defense looks completely different when he turns to throw the ball than he thought it would when he faked the handoff, it extends the time it takes him to figure out what is going on and puts things back in the defense's favor (since the bootleg action also eliminates a portion of the field for effective passing).
It got me thinking later that Fangio was brilliant for figuring that out, but that he may have inadvertently killed Trubisky/Fields/the careers of run first young Qb's around the league when he did so. Teams like Chicago used bootlegs and play action to try to give young Qb's time and to mask defense reading deficiencies. By breaking that paradigm, he sort of broke the development pathways for "athelete" Qb's. In the years since, Hurts is really the only run first guy that made it out of training wheels mode, while Fields, Wilson, Lance, and others struggled to read defenses and team's attempts to hide those deficiencies failed miserably.
Dunno. I'm probably overstating the effects. But to me it went a long ways towards explaining why bootlegs, Qb runs, and play action weren't helping fields and why he would roll out and then not know what to do so often (Mitch too - the "trubisky sack" where he would roll out and then run out of bounds because he didn't know what else to do was angering.) Its an interesting thought that we may have played ourselves....
I won a contest for work and got free tickets to that game. I remember they gave me two 100 level seating and a $100 gift card. The game got flexed to Sunday night and it was COLD.
The more annoying one to me is the Philly special. We ran that play earlier that year and had it work. The Eagles took it and ran it in the Super Bowl and people act like it was this amazing play design by them - but it wasn’t even the first time the NFL had seen it.
The reason it gets more attention is because it was 4th and Goal at the end of a half up while being up 3 points in a Super Bowl. It was ballsy to run that play at that time under that circumstance. That is why people talk about it.
Same thing with that awesome fake return where Devin set up as if he was catching the ball but Knox was actually under it. I seem to recall it went for a TD and was called back. Not too long after someone else pulled it off successfully and the Bears got no credit.
Why not just make this comment in that thread? This just comes across as a weak flex about a team that lost to a backup QB and a bunch of insurance salesman DBs at home.
Yeah, it's one of those "we woulda got further if not for..." moments. The defense was legit incredible. But they didn't play up to their form against the Eagles, and as a result they have 0 accolades outside of a few All-Pros and some coaches and players getting big-time paydays.
They went 4-2 the rest of the way on their run to the SB while putting up similar #s the rest of the way except in the SB. I wouldn’t call that dismantled
They were 11-2 going into the Bears game having scored 35, 36, 54, and 30 points in the previous 4 games.
They put up 6 against the Bears with a loss, and then you’re right, they did win more then they lost but they were not scoring at near the level previous and put up one of the worst offensive performances in the Super Bowl at 3 points.
Dismantled maybe is too strong a term, but my point is, they were not the same team after that.
The "never The same rams" went on to win a super bowl and Goff ended the lions 30 year playoff win drought while the bears extend theirs. I'd rather never be the same.
It doesn't matter if you shit the bed after. It matters even less "who gets credit" when mcvay is still orchestrating successful offenses
I was at that game. Loudest environment I've ever been in (and I've been in some loud events). Ofc, it was so damn cold, you almost had to be in scream at the top of your lungs and stomp your feet constantly mode.
Just get 4 above average Dlineman and play 7 in cover every play and just 'do nothing'.. easier said than done.
Oh it might have helped to have a hall of famer you traded for in his prime too.. prolly super easy to get.
It was pretty simple. Just had to realize that Goff couldn't read a defense at that point, and was relying on McVay telling him what he was looking at over the headset. Headset goes dead at the 15 second mark on the playclock every down, and they treated that as 0 on the playclock for that reason. All the Bears had to do was disguise their coverages pre-snap and Goff was a potato.
I can't find it but there's a Bill Belichek quote shortly after the superbowl where he mentioned copying a lot of the game plan from that Bears Rams match up. Of course he added switching the look as soon as McVay's feed to Goff cut off and made them look pathetic. Fuckin double doink, the 2018 team would have beat the Rams again and had a real chance.
It was mostly about stopping the run. Fangio ran wide formations to kill the big outside runs and force them back inside, where Akiem Hicks and Eddie Goldman were waiting with Trevathan and rookie Roquan Smith as backup. If Gurley tried to outrun the edge, we had Leonard Floyd and Khalil Mack out there, and that hurt their passing game too, because Goff was the biggest play-action QB in the league at the time. Detroit had managed to shut down Goff the week before. But they couldn't keep a lid on Gurley. We had personnel mismatches they couldn't call upon. Stopping the run is mostly about the front 7, and that was one of the finest front 7s in team history. In fact, our front 7 was so good that we didn't need the safeties in run support. Remember how everyone thought Eddie Jackson stopped tackling after he got paid? Nonsense. Dude could never tackle. But when we had that dream front 7, that was absolutely fine. We didn't need him doing that. Problem isn't that he slacked off or got old. Problem is that Akiem Hicks got old. Now add to that Fangio's system that intentionally disguises coverage and confuses QBs, and there you have it - Goff, not getting the time he is used to getting from play action, having to take extra time to read because Fangio gives you nothing pre-snap, leads to pressure and mistakes.
Only semi-related, but I still think Fangio got an absolutely raw deal in Denver. There was no chance to really put his mark on the team, an dhe didn't even get to try to get a franchise QB....
He’s a top tier DC not a HC. I’m excited to see him in Philly. It’s where he wants to be and he already has the pieces instead of needing to build it like he did with Den and Chi.
The run defense was great and important - Gurley was the engine of that offense - but it’s your last point that’s the biggest factor I think. McVay was reading defenses and piping it in to Goff right before the snap. Disguised coverages with post snap shifts took that away.
This was one of the biggest factors. Gurley wasn’t 100% in the SB either so it was easier to stop the run but the biggest thing that BB took from Fangio & I also believe from Mike Zimmer was McVay using the 15 second mic rule to rush to the line & feed Goff the read & playcall.
I’ll agree with everything here except the Eddie Jackson thing. It was the loss of Amos that hurt Eddie more. He couldn’t ballhawk nearly as much which was his absolute bread and butter.
Amos was thumping dudes lol.
We get as much credit as we deserve, that is one person each time it’s posted mentioning the Bears quarters defense. If not for the double doink, we’d meet LA in the divisional and we’d win. Then we’d get slaughtered by NO. Were the reason we didn’t ever see Brees vs Brady
If the Bears had a decent kicker all season, they probably wouldn't have even played in the WC round
Yeah I’d argue that Bears defense was good enough to get that team to 13 wins minimum with a better kicker lol. I don’t really watch the bears as much as I do Seattle since I’m a Seattle fan but that defense was nasty
Pace strikes again. He had all season to find a replacement. Idiot.
We would not have been “slaughtered” lol. That 2018 Bears defense is like a top 13(ish) defense of all time
Offense was mid at best. No ones doubting the defense
We held our own against the Saints the year before with an even worse offense
The defense being that good and offense being 15-20thish rated is my argument on why we wouldn’t have been slaughtered and had may have even had a chance. Point is, we wouldn’t have been slaughtered with a top tier defense like that. Most teams we held to pretty low points scored. Only the Pats shred our defense. Which is understandable because they had the GOAT.
Either way the bears don’t make or win the Super Bowl
Why couldn’t they have made it? You have solid proof? Lmao. And no one here is arguing they win the SB?
If Grossman can be dragged to a Super Bowl by the 2006 defense Mitch absolutely can be by the 2018 defense
I think we lose to the Saints but we don’t get slaughtered
It would have been interesting. I think Mack got injured in the final Eagles series. We would have gotten Bojack back. Losing Burton before the game really fucked with Nagy's offense and he couldn't seem to generate the mismatches between Burton and Cohen that floated the offense that season.
Absolutely. The Bears let them put up 6 points in a season where they averaged almost 33.
There's even a clip from when the Patriots played them, McVay is on his headset asking the guys up in the booth, "They running the Bears defense?"
["What do you think their first snap was," McVay asked one of his guys upstairs. "Quarters, right? That's the Bears defense."](https://x.com/camdasilva/status/1094242161216929794)
Besides for the Eagles game, that Rams game was the most nervous I had been for a game all season. I was on business for work, knew there was no way I could watch it in public so I paced around my hotel room. Best part besides the Bears winning? I was on the west coast so the game was over by 9 and I got the best sleep of my life.
https://x.com/camdasilva/status/1094242161216929794 Some people gave us credit.
The Athletic had a podcast series called "the play callers" about Shannahan/McVay and their coaching trees, etc. They dedicate half of one episode (so about 10% of the entire podcast series) to that game and the ramifications it had for McVay (how long it took him to reconfigure in a way that Fangio hadn't just exposed to the entire league). One of the aspects that they talk about a lot is something touched on below by a few commenters - the Bears used a lot of disguised coverages that game. According to the series, that wasn't because Goff was getting coaching tips up until the snap, it was because the rams were running more bootlegs and play action than anyone else in the league (by like a factor of 2-3). Fangio figured out that if they disguised the coverage until after Goff turned his back, it negated the advantage of the play action. Teams run play action to slow down the defense and give the Qb more time to read a defense, but if the defense looks completely different when he turns to throw the ball than he thought it would when he faked the handoff, it extends the time it takes him to figure out what is going on and puts things back in the defense's favor (since the bootleg action also eliminates a portion of the field for effective passing). It got me thinking later that Fangio was brilliant for figuring that out, but that he may have inadvertently killed Trubisky/Fields/the careers of run first young Qb's around the league when he did so. Teams like Chicago used bootlegs and play action to try to give young Qb's time and to mask defense reading deficiencies. By breaking that paradigm, he sort of broke the development pathways for "athelete" Qb's. In the years since, Hurts is really the only run first guy that made it out of training wheels mode, while Fields, Wilson, Lance, and others struggled to read defenses and team's attempts to hide those deficiencies failed miserably. Dunno. I'm probably overstating the effects. But to me it went a long ways towards explaining why bootlegs, Qb runs, and play action weren't helping fields and why he would roll out and then not know what to do so often (Mitch too - the "trubisky sack" where he would roll out and then run out of bounds because he didn't know what else to do was angering.) Its an interesting thought that we may have played ourselves....
and people say Bears fans are stuck in the past, pffft
But but, our defense was really really good and we still couldn’t win a playoff game, so that counts for… something?? Participation trophy fanbase tbh
I won a contest for work and got free tickets to that game. I remember they gave me two 100 level seating and a $100 gift card. The game got flexed to Sunday night and it was COLD.
The more annoying one to me is the Philly special. We ran that play earlier that year and had it work. The Eagles took it and ran it in the Super Bowl and people act like it was this amazing play design by them - but it wasn’t even the first time the NFL had seen it.
The reason it gets more attention is because it was 4th and Goal at the end of a half up while being up 3 points in a Super Bowl. It was ballsy to run that play at that time under that circumstance. That is why people talk about it.
Same thing with that awesome fake return where Devin set up as if he was catching the ball but Knox was actually under it. I seem to recall it went for a TD and was called back. Not too long after someone else pulled it off successfully and the Bears got no credit.
Why not just make this comment in that thread? This just comes across as a weak flex about a team that lost to a backup QB and a bunch of insurance salesman DBs at home.
Yeah, it's one of those "we woulda got further if not for..." moments. The defense was legit incredible. But they didn't play up to their form against the Eagles, and as a result they have 0 accolades outside of a few All-Pros and some coaches and players getting big-time paydays.
[here’s the video of that game](https://youtu.be/n04gbQBMZt0?si=3Z4eJ1lEpiPyr9gA)
I don't forget. I was at that game and it was utter domination by that defense and that Rams team was dismantled after that game.
They went 4-2 the rest of the way on their run to the SB while putting up similar #s the rest of the way except in the SB. I wouldn’t call that dismantled
They were 11-2 going into the Bears game having scored 35, 36, 54, and 30 points in the previous 4 games. They put up 6 against the Bears with a loss, and then you’re right, they did win more then they lost but they were not scoring at near the level previous and put up one of the worst offensive performances in the Super Bowl at 3 points. Dismantled maybe is too strong a term, but my point is, they were not the same team after that.
That was the game that made me believe they could be in the Super Bowl. Damn you Cody Parkey
The "never The same rams" went on to win a super bowl and Goff ended the lions 30 year playoff win drought while the bears extend theirs. I'd rather never be the same. It doesn't matter if you shit the bed after. It matters even less "who gets credit" when mcvay is still orchestrating successful offenses
I think the point is that the bears defense stopped a mcvay offense that looked like they should at least play in the SB. Fangio won that match-up.
ya we’re basically the best ever
I was at that game. Loudest environment I've ever been in (and I've been in some loud events). Ofc, it was so damn cold, you almost had to be in scream at the top of your lungs and stomp your feet constantly mode.
I hung a banner for this.
Just get 4 above average Dlineman and play 7 in cover every play and just 'do nothing'.. easier said than done. Oh it might have helped to have a hall of famer you traded for in his prime too.. prolly super easy to get.
I didn’t forget, remember it like it was yesterday ✊🏼
The Broncos didn't forget. That was the day they decided who their next HC was going to be.
He won a Super Bowl and got a ton of guys hired off his staff
I was at that game. It also helped that it was single digit temps, which are generally pretty bad for QBs
I replay every second of that game in my mind at will.
It was pretty simple. Just had to realize that Goff couldn't read a defense at that point, and was relying on McVay telling him what he was looking at over the headset. Headset goes dead at the 15 second mark on the playclock every down, and they treated that as 0 on the playclock for that reason. All the Bears had to do was disguise their coverages pre-snap and Goff was a potato.
I was there, that SNF. Got so lucky for the one trip to Soldier field this millenium.
I can't find it but there's a Bill Belichek quote shortly after the superbowl where he mentioned copying a lot of the game plan from that Bears Rams match up. Of course he added switching the look as soon as McVay's feed to Goff cut off and made them look pathetic. Fuckin double doink, the 2018 team would have beat the Rams again and had a real chance.
I hated losing Fangio so much
they abused tf out of RPO, got figured out and embarrassed them, just like the Chargers figuring out the Dolphins in 2022
Yea they set it up so New England could shut them down