(670 The Score) The Bears defense has had a strong start to the season, but it hasn’t been consistently dominant yet.
And that’s why star cornerback Jaylon Johnson believes there’s plenty for the unit to improve upon. In an appearance on the Spiegel & Holmes Show on Monday evening, Johnson expressed that belief in the aftermath of the Bears’ 24-18 win against the Rams on Sunday at Soldier Field.
“We gave up too many plays and didn’t get off on third down,” Johnson said in reference to the Rams going 5-of-11 on third-down conversions. “We definitely did a solid job as far as stopping from scoring points, but I feel like they had too many yards. I don’t think we did good enough. Definitely with (Sean) McVay and how he runs the team, it’s not like it’s going to be an easy task, but it definitely was a game we could’ve done a lot better.”
In a 2-2 start, the Bears are allowing 18.8 points per game, which ranks eighth in the NFL. They’re 10th in total defense in allowing 295.5 yards per game. The Bears are 18th in rushing defense in allowing 121.0 yards per game on the ground.
That all needs to be better in Johnson's mind, and he pointed out the defense – just like the offense did in a much-publicized storyline last week – is having discussions with the coaching staff on how to improve.
“Even though we’re doing a good job and things like that, we’re definitely having those conversations on our side as well – ‘Hey coach, we like this, we don’t like this, how can we do this?’ Just for us on defense, it’s not like, ‘OK, we just have everything together.’ We’re trying to figure out and have those conversations on defense as well, figuring out what we can do better or how we can do things a different way to be able to go out there and ultimately be able to win and dominate.”