Monsters’ Ball
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The NFC North was supposed to be the worst division in football, and whichever team finished in first place was supposed to move on to the postseason as a sacrificial lamb for better teams. But Chicago’s 13-3 victory over popular Super Bowl favorite Carolina last week showed that the Bears can be a force to be reckoned with.
This season marks the 20th anniversary of the team that featured what may have been the greatest defense in NFL history: the 1985 Chicago Bears. Almost as if they meant to honor the anniversary, the 2005 Bears have developed a defense that could be as dominant as its predecessor.
The next step in the evolution of the Bears is to beat another strong team on the road, and this Sunday they’ll face off against a Tampa Bay team whose defense still features remnants of the last unit to be compared to the 1985 Monsters of the Midway: the 2002 Buccaneers.
Should they continue on their current pace, the 2005 Bears will have a legitimate claim to the title of greatest defense ever. Both traditional and advanced statistics show them to be stingier than the 1985 Bears, the 2002 Bucs, or another historic defense, the 2000 Ravens. The Bears have allowed 252 yards per game, better than all three of these teams, and 11 points per game, second only to the Ravens. The Bears also top the other three teams by allowing just five yards per pass attempt and 8.9 yards per completion.
Some have suggested Chicago’s current numbers are the product of an easy schedule. AtFootballOutsiders.com, we attempt to filter out the effects of field position and schedule strength with the DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average) system, which breaks down each play of the season and compares it to the NFL average based on situation and opponent. (Acronym aside, defensive ratings are actually offense-adjusted.) These numbers only go back to 1998, so the 1985 Bears have never been measured. But the current Bears have a defensive DVOA of -38.9%, which rates them better than both the 2002 Bucs (-32.4%) and the 2000 Ravens (-36.7%).
So why are the Bears not considered a Super Bowl favorite like these other teams with great defenses? Because, according to the DVOA system, they are weak in nearly every other aspect of the game. The 2000 Ravens ranked 22nd in offense and second in special teams. The 2002 Bucs ranked 15th in offense and eighth in special teams. But the 2005 Bears rank 26th in offense and 20th in special teams.
The Bears actually have a surprisingly good running game. Thomas Jones, long considered a first-round bust in Arizona, is averaging 4.4 yards per carry and will pass his career high of 948 rushing yards with just 108 more. To help Jones, The Bears are an getting excellent push on the right side of their offensive line with ex-Tennessee tackle Fred Miller and tight end Desmond Clark.
But the team is suffering the growing pains of two rookies in important positions. When quarterback Rex Grossman went down in the preseason, fourthround pick Kyle Orton took his place. Orton has completed just 55% of passes for only 5.3 yards per attempt – barely higher than the historically low average allowed by the Bears defense. His reputation as a game manager is belied by his 11 interceptions and eight fumbles.
Elsewhere, kicker Robbie Gould is just 9-of-13 on field goals. His kickoff average of 61.4 yards is near the bottom of the league and he has not forced a single touchback.
Can Tampa Bay take advantage of these weaknesses and snap Chicago’s six-game winning streak? Rookie running back Cadillac Williams finally broke out of his injury-induced slump with 116 yards against Atlanta last week, but that was against the league’s 31st-ranked run defense. Chances are, he won’t have the same success against the NFL’s best run defense.
Bucs quarterback Chris Simms is not a rookie, but this will be just his seventh NFL start. It is difficult to foresee him unlocking the secrets of the Chicago secondary, particularly behind a porous offensive line facing a pass rush as teriffic as the Bears’.
Instead, the Bucanneers will hope to win with their own defense, which has looked very good this year as well. The defensive strategy is based on stopping the opposition on first down. The average first-down run against Tampa goes for only 3.4 yards, second in the league, and the average second down faced by Tampa opponents requires 8.6 yards, tied with Chicago for the second best mark in the league.
These long-yardage situations have allowed the Bucs to take advantage of a schedule filled with the league’s worst quarterbacks. DVOA ranks their pass defense ninth before applying opponent adjustments, but 17th afterwards. That would be a problem against a good quarterback, but against Orton they should have plenty of success.
The resulting game should be an intense defensive battle, where every yard of field position matters and every turnover changes the course of the game. Tampa’s defense still features stalwarts from the 2002 championship team like linebacker Derrick Brooks and cornerback Ronde Barber, but the newer players on the 11-man unit will have quite a challenge matching a defense that is the best now, and perhaps the best in the last two decades.
Mr. Schatz is the editor in chief of FootballOutsiders.com.