Prevent D: Good or Bad?

Opinion on Prevent D?

  • No Worries - It's working great! Bears are winning!

    Votes: 6 21.4%
  • Slight Concern - Good concept. Maybe used to much or needs tweaking.

    Votes: 5 17.9%
  • Significant Concern - Bad concept. Should play straight up normal ball for the most part.

    Votes: 17 60.7%

  • Total voters
    28

xer0h0ur

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Good stuff so far here. Seems 8 of 11 feel this is a significant problem or risk to potential Wins, either on D and/or on O.


The more I think about it, I just can't agree with letting off the gas to such an egregious extent as we've seen since Nagy's tenure began. It's one thing to be 90% sure you don't give up a big play, but they're just handing out 1st downs in the 4th, and not even trying to gain em themselves. OBVIOUS run plays, including Nagy getting too cute with Patterson, & Cohen. Maybe those plays work earlier when there's some degree of uncertainty for opposing Ds, but man.

What the fuck? Nagy has lost a grand total of 6 games of 21...In fact in 1.25 seasons he already surpassed Trestman and Fox in wins. Do people even remember what shit football looked like? Holy shit.
 

Toast88

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Differences in opinions on strategy are fine. But because someone doesn’t like soft defenses at the end of halves doesn’t mean they “don’t know football”.

There are plenty of coaches who keep their foot on the gas late in games with the lead. Do they also not know football?
 

Silverwulf

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The prevent D has its place. The problem is generally WHEN it's used these days, by all teams.
It's not supposed to be used for the entire fourth quarter or for even a significant portion of a quarter.
It's more of a one time thing. Primarily because momentum is a very real thing in sports.

We clearly changed up the defense on the one drive they scored on and then went back to what we were doing before on their last drive. It was blatantly obvious, and not a good idea.

In particular it probably wasn't a good idea because of the team we were playing. Is there a team more suited to function against the Prevent than the Vikings? Maybe the Patriots, but that's about it. Short quick passes for 7 to 10 yards a pop? Diggs, Thielen, Cook?? And Cousins throwing them the ball? That's the only thing he's good at. Why would we sit back and let them do the one thing they actually are good at doing on offense?
 

Chris Sojka

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We should be attacking more with leads not less.

Then in long situations play for picks
 
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Bearfanfromnewjersey

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Always good to hear people with zero coaching experience telling professionals how to play football!

with that said prevent has its place. Keep big plays down and runs down clock. I want more blitzes but when you have our front i can see why they Bears do this
 

JP Hochbaum

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Yes prevent is a smart tactic. The best defense is having little time on the clock and limit the other teams play book.
 

HearshotKDS

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Where have you seen the Bears play prevent D? Maybe the last few seconds of the MIN game? I'd be more concerned about the "Prevent O", where the team moves to run-run-pass-punt for the entire 4th and makes the defense play 10 minutes TOP in just 1 quarter.
 

WookieOnRitalin

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Wins are wins.

Yes, prevent gives more cushion and allows for more yardage, but the key to remember is that the odds become more in your favor as more time disappears from the clock. I do not have every detail of every liklihood of every win percentage as each point in a football game, but it does not take a genius mathematician to understand that you shift strategy to protect the lead when you're up more than 8 points in the fourth quarter. The strategy will change to eating the clock on both offense and defense.

This is also the benefit of having a more impactful pass rush as you can get to the QB with 4 and drop 7 especially when you have already dropped the QB 6x in the game at that point.

The issue is not the Prevent D. The issue is the Offense. If the defense forces the other team to eat 6-8 minutes on a drive and the offense does not do its part, then you have a problem. One our two first downs in that situation (note: not scores) will eat up another 3-5 minutes. This drains the other team.

So yeah, I generally do not have a problem with it considering the math is in the favor of the team with the lead especially if they are up by more than one score.
 

Pegger

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Prevent defense is a good strategy, but hard for fans to get their heads around. The entire game the defenses does their best to limit every yard gained and then late in the game it seems like they are giving up large chunk plays?

Truthfully earlier in the game it's all about field position. You do fight for every yard. In that last bit it becomes a race against the clock. Since you opponent needs 10+ yard plays that can stop the clock you adjust the defense to take away the things they need the most.

Finally, it's typically a defense that has less injuries. It's more of a deep coverage with corralling type tackles.

I fully understand how fans watching get frustrated, but there's a lot of math behind it's success.
 

Starion

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so you have zero concept of probability

you must be terrible at gambling

Do you gamble? If so, I'd guess you're a grinder and probably fold more often and bet less than you should.

Per this comment, it seems people here probably disagree with you in their implied odds of the opposing outcomes.
Clearly you seem to think that a bomb/quick big play TD is a higher risk than other fans here.

I can honestly agree as to why you might feel this way!! (sort've)... In 2018 SEVERAL if not all of the 5 season losses were due to this. (PHI hurt big without Jackson)
My disagreement is that most of these losses (GB, MIA, NE, etc) were due to runs or very short slant/quick out passes that broke deep due to crazy overagressive shit tackling by LBs & DBs. Guys went for the big hit and whiffed. BAD.
My take on prevent D, is to play with enough safety help to not get stuck like they did then, and to not be as blitz happy as early on, but I do believe they've shored up their tackling since.

Now the '18 GB & NYG and now '19 WASH & MIN, they let up far too early and far too much cushion.

My odds of a takeaway on a long 8-15 play 4 minute drive given up are maybe 1/3 or even 1/2. My odds for a stop with NORMAL, all be it not AS SUPER AGGRESSIVE as normal should = a 75% + driver stop odds.

My odds of giving up a TD drive (like they showed vs. WASH & MIN) are significantly higher when we see this extent of prevent VS what we've seen with "normal" D, or even slightly backed off D. The Early Excessive Prevent seems like is 50+% TD odds; esp with that 95 yard TD drive to MIN who were at death's door and still 0 run game!! WTH was that!??

Gotta step it up somewhat...At least until they clean up the increased flags that also give up free 1st downs in addition to the absolute cake-ass 1st downs when there's 3-4 man rush and DBs playing man 12-15 yards deep on 2nd & 7.

Nobody is saying to NOT play any prevent D. Just not sit everybody and give 15 yard cushions for the last 20 minutes. Dunno, maybe I'm wrong. Go watch the last few 4th quarters & get back to us.
 

Starion

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Wins are wins.

Yes, prevent gives more cushion and allows for more yardage, but the key to remember is that the odds become more in your favor as more time disappears from the clock. I do not have every detail of every liklihood of every win percentage as each point in a football game, but it does not take a genius mathematician to understand that you shift strategy to protect the lead when you're up more than 8 points in the fourth quarter. The strategy will change to eating the clock on both offense and defense.

This is also the benefit of having a more impactful pass rush as you can get to the QB with 4 and drop 7 especially when you have already dropped the QB 6x in the game at that point.

The issue is not the Prevent D. The issue is the Offense. If the defense forces the other team to eat 6-8 minutes on a drive and the offense does not do its part, then you have a problem. One our two first downs in that situation (note: not scores) will eat up another 3-5 minutes. This drains the other team.

RE: "Wins are Wins"

Yes and NO. Unless up by 2 TDs+, letting a team back in is not the safe play until our O steps up. How many 3 n outs did we see late vs MIN or WASH? A ton. 0 late TDs in any game.


^ ^ I completely understand & agree with Wookie's game plan concept and other comments like it. - - When it can be done correctly as a team.

UNTIL the Bears' Offense shows any signs of competent life LATE in a game, the extent of Prevent is my concern.

When it's OBVIOUS run-run-run-punt, even that's fine IF (a big non-proven IF) the O-Line blocks for even average performance. Currently they're bottom in league in run blocking. I'm glad as hell to see better pass pro, but DM & Cohen are consistently met in the backfield by multiple tacklers, and I'm not even talking about late in games during clear clock-killing run calls.



So yeah, I generally do not have a problem with it considering the math is in the favor of the team with the lead especially if they are up by more than one score.

So yes, I agree - until the run game steps up, the defense can't go wrists to ankles in prevent cushion. Just me.
 
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