What to expect from a Chicago Bears defense under defensive coordinator Dennis Allen

Dennis Allen was a free agent come Nov. 9.

The New Orleans Saints parted ways with him as their head coach, and Allen took time for himself.

"I got away from football a little bit," Allen said. "I’m not going to forget football in a couple of months."

The 2025 calendar year came soon, and Allen was back in the game. 

There was already someone on Allen's heels, however. Detroit Lions' offensive coordinator Ben Johnson was putting names together for a potential staff if he were to take a head coaching job.

It's not a hypothetical anymore. Allen is now the Bears' defensive coordinator, he was introduced via Zoom on Jan. 30.

"Once the first of the year rolled around, I got my juices flowing a little bit," Allen said.

Allen's name didn't have to travel far to make it into Johnson's ear. Both Johnson's boss, Dan Campbell, and his defensive coordinator counterpart, Aaron Glenn, knew Allen from their time at Texas A&M. Allen played with Glenn when they were both Aggies, and Campbell played when Allen was a graduate assistant on Texas A&M's staff from 1996 to 1999. Allen also coached with Glenn and Campbell for five seasons in New Orleans.

Still, Allen had never met Johnson. Not until recently, anyway. That didn't matter as Allen was on Johnson's list of "coaches to have" if he ever was to build his own staff as a head coach.

Before Johnson had accepted the head coaching job in Chicago, before the playoffs even, he reached out to Allen.

"At some point, later in this season, he reached out to see if I was interested," Allen said. "It’s a product of the same connections."

That came to fruition during NFL Championship Weekend. Allen was officially announced as the Bears' defensive coordinator on Jan. 28. He's officially back in the game.

In his introduction on Thursday, Allen was asked about what his style of defense would look like. The word "aggressive" came up multiple times. That makes sense.

Those are traits that Johnson wants in his defense.

"What we want to put on tape is a physical, detailed, smart unit," Johnson said on Jan. 22.

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In fact, Johnson wants his defense to be aggressive and fight to the point where they don't have to use old-school clichés when describing the team's pass rush.

It's because the Bears need to get after the quarterback.

"I can give you all the cliches about pursuit and relentless and getting takeaways and yeah, there's no question about that," Johnson said. "I talked about it before and this game over the last five years has transitioned from turnovers and takeaways. It's now about quarterback play. And so offensively, how do we set up our quarterback to have the most success within the game? And how do we disrupt the opposing quarterback?"

That's going to be the main objective with Allen's defense.

No.1, make sure the pass rush gets home. No. 2, disrupt the receivers' routes with physical cornerback play.

"This has become a quarterback drive league," Allen said, nearly reiterating his new boss's words. "You affect the quarterback through rush and coverage."

That's the goal. But before they can get on the field, they need to get the right pieces on the field that fit what Allen wants to do. That process has already begun.

Allen said he needed to fill out his staff first, then communicate with general manager Ryan Poles about what the Bears could look to add. Allen did say the Bears have a foundation in place, though. He mentioned standout nickelback Kyler Gordon by name as a big piece of what's already in place to work with.

"I have a vision for how we can utilize him," Allen said. "I think the foundation for what we want to do is there. I'm just excited about finally getting these guys in here and us having an opportunity to work with them and seeing exactly what we have."

Given the players in place, it's fair to assume the Bears will look similar to what they've looked like the last three season. This time, they'll have a new scheme.

The Bears will still be in a 4-3 alignment, so they won't need to teach a different alignment, but there will be different calls and leadership. Perhaps a breath of fresh air is what the Bears defense needs, especially after they began the season playing at a high level before leveling out before the end of the season.

Allen could be that breath of fresh air, especially as he won't have to move many pieces around to find immediate success. 

"When Ben asked me if I would be interested, there was a couple of places that I felt like had the pieces in place to potentially be a really good football team. Chicago was obviously one of them," Allen said. "I was excited when it came about that this was the job that he really wanted. This was the job that he was able to get, and I was excited when he wanted me to come along with him."

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