Here's Why the Bears Defense Will Be Elite Again in 2020

The Chicago Bears defense was the best in the NFL in 2018, allowing a league-low 17.7 points per game while holding opponents to 10 or fewer points on six occasions.

The unit took a step back in 2019, but there's still plenty of reason to believe they'll return to form as an elite unit in 2020.

To start with, the defense was still strong in 2019, allowing just 18.6 points per game (No. 4 in the NFL) and 324.1 yards per game (No. 8 in the NFL).

Some of the things that held them back, like a lack of sacks and interceptions, weren't really too worrying if we take a deeper look. Khalil Mack, for example, posted 4.0 fewer sacks than he had in 2018, but he was still getting to the QB well, with 14 QB hits (compared to 18 in 2018). In fact, the Bears had three players notch at least 10 QB hits, but only two players recorded more than 3.0 sacks.

They also had just 10 interceptions compared to 67 pass defenses, while they had 27 picks and 98 pass defenses in 2018. That's obviously a drop on both fronts, but most notable is how much more the interceptions fell off than the pass defenses.

Both sacks and picks are pretty high-variance stats, and the fact that the underlying pass-rushing and coverage stats were still strong is a great indicator that the Bears could be due for a big bounce-back year on the defensive side of the ball in 2020.

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Jason Schandl is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Jason Schandl also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username Jaymun. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.