Chicago Bears DC explains what keeps him up at night about the Tennessee Titans’ offense

First-year Chicago Bears defensive coordinator Eric Washington talked about his unique challenge this week. He’ll be preparing the Bears’ defense to play against a Tennessee Titans offense that doesn’t have much on film to prepare for.

Sure, the Titans had three preseason games under new head coach Brian Callahan. But teams don’t show their true offensive in scrimmage games during August.

Eric Washington is looking for clues on the Tennessee Titans’ offense

Per the Bears website, Washington said on Thursday that he’s trying to scout Callahan and his staff’s past to look for clues on the new offense.

“You do your due diligence against the play-caller’s background,” Washington said. “You also have to look at all of the members of the staff and what they would likely contribute and what their backgrounds and fingerprints have been in terms of what they’ve majored in at the places that they have coached.

Brian Callahan is a wild card in Week 1

Callahan was the Cincinnati Bengals offensive coordinator from 2019-23, so the Bears can start there. But the Titans’ offense won’t be the same. For one, Callahan is building an offense that will need to score without Joe Burrow throwing to Ja’Marr Chase. (He might not even have DeAndre Hopkins.)

“We’ll look as much as we need to, [but] some of this is projection,” Washington said. “There is no guarantee this coach will Xerox what they did in Cincinnati and present that to us. He’ll have his own ID and spin on what he’s done, and our focus will continue to be on us. We have rules, we have a process that we feel like will line up and present itself to whoever we’re playing against.”

The Chicago Bears roster is heavy on defensive linemen

One way the Bears’ defense is focusing on itself is the way head coach Matt Eberflus and general manager Ryan Poles constructed the roster. The Bears will carry 10 defensive linemen on their 53-man roster to start the season.

Washington, who has a background coaching defensive linemen, said he needs the big guys up front to make stops on early downs.

“The reason we dress the number of defensive linemen that we do is to make sure that we can present an explosive group, especially in critical situations,” Washington said. “We want to be second-and-10; we don’t want to be second-and-1. [Line coach] Travis [Smith] will do a great job of managing that process and just making sure that we understand the first line of rushers, what we need to do on first and second down with respect to that, and just make sure that guys are fresh and explosive when we absolutely need them.”

The Bears will have to trim their roster down to 48 players for Sunday’s contest. It’ll be interesting to see how many defensive linemen the Bears will roll with against the Titans on Sunday. After all, three defensive linemen, including Montez Sweat, are dealing with injuries this week.

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