Bears DC Dennis Allen Details What Went Wrong on Defense in 2025

It was day and night for the Chicago Bears when it came to their offense and defense.

Things ran great on offense.

The Bears went in the top 15 for passing yards (234.5), rushing yards (144.5) and points (25.9) per game.

It was a different story on defense. While the Bears led the league with 33 takeaways, the rest of the defense struggled.

There were key injuries to Kyler Gordon and Jaylon Johnson, who both missed the majority of the regular season.

The defense played much worse without those two starters on the field. The Bears ranked inside the bottom 15 of the league in points allowed (24.4), passing yards allowed (239.4) and rushing yards allowed (134.5) per game.

There was also trouble in the sack department. Montez Sweat had a good 10-sack season, but Dayo Odeyingbo didn't live up to expectations and suffered a season-ending Achilles injury. Rookie Shemar Turner sustained a torn ACL and missed the entire year.

The team only managed 35 sacks as a team, ranking 22nd in the NFL last season.

The league-leading takeaways covered up a lot of the Bears' struggles on that side of the ball. Defensive coordinator Dennis Allen went to the podium recently to offer insight into what caused the inconsistencies for his squad.

Allen believed the main issue was that the focus last season was on installing the scheme, and the team lost sight of its fundamentals.

"We focused so much on installing the scheme last year, you know, because it was brand new," Allen said. "And we do have a high volume of things that we carry in the defense and we focus so much on that we lost some of the lost sight of some of the fundamentals and techniques that it takes to function to do those things. I don't think we were as fundamentally sound defensively as we need to be."

Improvements on defense were made in free agency and the 2026 NFL Draft.

The Bears signed Coby Bryant from the Seattle Seahawks to make up for Kevin Byard and Jaquan Brisker departing in free agency.

Then, Chicago picked Oregon safety Dillon Thieneman as its other starter. Texas cornerback Malik Muhammad, Arizona State linebacker Keyshaun Elliott and Georgia Tech defensive tackle Jordan Van Den Berg were the other defensive picks.

The Bears got younger on defense and time will tell if that helps the team improve on that side of the ball. One thing is for certain, the Bears can't have another season like that if they expect to win football games in the NFL.

For the sake of this franchise, the defense must improve.