Bears Defense is Completely Transformed With All-Pro Jeffery Simmons

It can't be understated how big of an addition Jeffery Simmons is for the Chicago Bears' defense. 

Defensive coordinator Dennis Allen now has a dominant presence in the interior of his front seven -- one that requires additional game planning and help from multiple offensive linemen to stop on every given down. 

In the Bears' 34-17 win over the Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field, Simmons finished with six total tackles, four stops and one sack. After serving a two-game suspension,  defensive end Montez Sweat put together his most productive game of the season, finishing with five total quarterback pressures and a sack. Penalties negated two more sacks Sweat should have logged in the game. 

During his postgame interview, Sweat said that Simmons kept reminding him throughout the game that the front four needed to generate pressure on the quarterback without relying on extra rushers. 

"I don't think we blitzed as much as we usually do, so yeah, look forward to it," Sweat said. 

Sweat is exactly right. The Bears blitzed a season-low 20.5% in the Week 8 victory over the Seahawks -- also the fourth-lowest blitz % among all NFL teams.

Here's a look at the Bears' blitzing rates through the first eight games of the 2026 regular season, according to Next Gen Stats.

Blitz Percentage

Even though Allen didn't call as many blitzes, his unit still created pressure and impacted quarterback Sam Darnold. According to Pro Football Focus, the Bears created 16 quarterback pressures out of 39 drop backs, and Darnold completed just three of his 12 passes for 34 yards and was intercepted by defensive lineman James Lynch after defensive end Austin Booker tipped his pass late in the fourth quarter. 

The Seahawks finished 1 for 11 on third down and were held to 252 yards of total offense, just one yard above their lowest output of the season.

Allen has had multiple defenders not available throughout the year, which isn't uncommon for any coach, but he has had to adjust how to best play each opponent without some of his top playmakers. There has been a lot of blitzing involved to help out of defensive front that couldn't win one-on-one matchups. 

That changes now with Simmons, and Bears head coach Ben Johnson shared last Saturday how the All-Pro defensive tackle changes the way Allen can call his defense.

"You get a guy like this and it frees up a lot of things," Johnson said. "It takes a lot of issues that you might have seen as shortcomings and can mask those to a degree because when you’ve got a defensive player that’s as dominant as this guy is, it just takes him making a play to cover up some things across the board. I really believe he’s going to elevate the play of everybody around him as well. Just having him out there is going to do wonders, a shot in the arm for us, to a degree.”

The Bears now face a short week to prepare for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday Night Football at Soldier Field. With Simmons anchoring the interior of Chicago's defense, Allen gets another opportunity to craft a game plan for a unit that no longer needs to blitz to create pressure, but has the flexibility to do so when he wants.