Dan Bernstein (5:29)
Wherever she put it, that's where it is. But he is really good at this. And when I say this, I mean what he does. This is not Brian Flores, but it is a test for very different, more subtle reasons. And to understand the nature of the Vic Fangio defense, you have to know at the, what you can do at the NFL level that you can't do at any other level. It's really hard to do it collegiately because of the discipline and the athleticism, both that are required to create disguised coverages on the back end. He doesn't like to blitz very often because he would much rather deploy that manpower away from the line of scrimmage and have everything shored up behind and to trust that front four to get enough pressure to speed things up. What Vick wants to do is give you a pre snap look. Even the, even the smartest quarterbacks, even the most battle tested quarterbacks like to are gonna walk up to that line of scrimmage and say 52's the mic. That means this is this gap. This is this gap. The protection slides this way and therefore these people are hot. 52, however, in Vick's mind, is not the mic. That was the read that he wanted you to make. And then when you turn your back to the defense, if you are starting from center, by the time you, your eyes return to the field, you had the wrong mike. Somebody else is in that position. And now every gap is redefined and the guy you thought was a hot receiver is covered. This is what his defense does. And to some extent, all NFL defenses do this. But the reason that it's specific to the NFL level, the ability to do this stuff really well, is because of the intelligence and the speed and quickness of the defenders that are Being asked to stand in a place where they're not going to be and to hurry to their landmark as the quarterback is dropping back to pass or after the play after they get the kill or the can and the play has changed. This is what I'm watching in this game Friday. I'm going to watch so much of what happens pre snap and how many plays are killed. How many times does Caleb Williams go up and say wrong look, but they baited you into that. They want you to go to your second play. And now again, Ben Johnson's no idiot. This is not new to him. He's way ahead of me on all this stuff and he better be or the Bears are in some trouble. So we certainly assume that Ben Johnson has coached offenses against Vic Fangio before and or Vic Fangio disciples. He knows that this is the game that's played. So maybe there's multiple plays called, maybe there's three plays that are called in the huddle instead of two. And maybe one is kill and one is can. Or maybe there's another call that they have to say my quarterback is going to be armed by the time he surveys the scene or with more options and he's going to have to sniff out a fake defense. He's going to have to sniff out a fake look and know in what you're going to catch them. This is the cat and mouse game. This is going to be a very material coaching game. And my belief is, because Ben Johnson has never been a head coach and a play caller before at the same time, ever in his life, that I would say the advantage goes to Vic Fangio who is up in his glass case of emotion and will be calmly looking down on everything and simply playing his his game with the, with little moving pieces like it's electric football. He doesn't. The emotion is removed from it. For when you're up there, I mean you still got your shouting assistance and everything behind you, but it's a different look. Ben is in it. Ben is down there. He's head coaching, he's pumping his fist, he's covering his face with card and he's gonna have to have an understanding. So what are we watching? We're watching the scripted plays. We're watching those first. The first series or the first two series depending on how long they last. It's really important to see if Johnson can get a leg up on his not his direct counterpart but his play calling counterpart by showing some things early. Make note of the formations and the plays the Bears run early and look and see what the goals are of those plays and then later not saying it even has to be after the half. It may be the very next series when you see those same formations, wonder what else is coming. And this isn't necessarily what you'd refer to as a trick play. It may be. It may be something exotic, but it may simply be running out of the same formation that you passed from, passing out of the same formation from which you ran, or allowing for some of the run pass option possibilities that give Caleb more control and more power. When we say this is a test of Williams for all the good and the bad that we've seen, Vic Fangio's job is to lean into the bad, to test his accuracy in decision making, which has been from the start of the season through now. An open question as everything else has been good. The Bears been scoring a lot of points. It's been great. I don't think in this game the Bears can rely on causing the turnovers that they've been able to cause against lesser teams because the Eagles really don't do that. Jalen hurts Even though their their offense is clunky right now, it's been a while since they've scored like 24 points. They just, they don't. They haven't needed to score a ton of points. And they may in this game. They're certainly not perfect, but they take pretty good care of the ball. And I wouldn't go in counting on what the Bears have relied upon and that is generating 1, 2, 3 extra possessions and extra opportunities with great field position per game to do that.
