The way Lovie Smith sees it, the Houston Texans and Chicago Bears defenses are second cousins — at least with the way their first duty is to stop the run.
The comparisons makes sense given Bears rookie coach Matt Eberflus spent time coaching with the Dallas Cowboys from 2011-17. From 2013-17, he was linebackers coach while the team ran the Tampa 2 scheme with Rod Marinelli as defensive coordinator. Marinelli was Smith’s defensive coordinator with the Bears from 2010-12.
“There’s a commitment to it,” Smith told reporters Wednesday. “I think every defense should start off trying to stop the run. I’m looking at us, I’m going to say, ‘hey what do we need to do first.’ We need to stop the run and you make that commitment to it. I’m sure they’ll do the same thing.”
Even if the Bears do have a commitment to stopping the run, it isn’t showing up in the stat sheet as of the first two weeks. Chicago gives up the most rushing yards per game at 189.5, and are tied for the sixth-highest rushing yards per carry surrendered at 5.1.
“We’ve got to be able to run the football,” said Smith.
Rookie running back Dameon Pierce had a better outing against the Denver Broncos in Week 2. The fourth-rounder from Florida had a 4.6 yards per carry as he rushed 15 times for 69 yards — an improvement from Week 1 when he had 11 carries for 33 yards.
For Smith, if the Texans are able to run the football, it means they also have to execute better in other phases of the game.
Said Smith: “When I talk about running the football, there’s so much more than running the football. We’ve got to be successful running the ball, but we’ve got to open our passing game too. When teams make a hard commitment to stop the run like that, they’re in one-on-one situation outside. As you talk to our guys outside and our quarterback giving the ball to him, we have to do some things like that to help the run also.”
Houston kicks off in Chicago Sunday from Soldier Field at 12:00 p.m. Central Time.
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