A Look Back at How Vic Fangio's Bears Defense Throttled the Rams in 2018
Fangio's approach led to copy cats who slowed down the Rams offense for 2 years
If you listened to the recently released “Playcallers” podcast, then you know it was Vic Fangio’s Bears defense in 2018 that provided the rest of the league with the best approach for slowing down Sean McVay’s Rams Offense.
In their Week 14 game that season, Chicago held the #2 scoring offense in the league to just 6 points. Quarterback Jared Goff’s stat line was downright ugly: 20-44, 180 yds, 0 TD, 4 INT, 19.1 passer rating, 3 sacks.
At first glance, it appeared to be just a bad matchup for the Rams. A matter of the Bears’ D-line kicking the crap out of the Rams’ O-line. After all, L.A. would eventually recover and go on to reach the Super Bowl, with the offense scoring 30 and 26 points in their two NFC playoff wins.
Then the Rams were held to a Super Bowl record-low 3 points by Bill Belichick and the Patriots. It was another Belichick masterpiece. However, we later learned that much of it was inspired by what Fangio’s Bears had done earlier in the season.
That loss gave defenses around the league good answers for at least slowing down McVay’s offense over the next two seasons. The Rams would finish just 11th in scoring in 2019 and then 22nd in 2020.
Below, I’ll dive into how Fangio’s scheme derailed McVay’s offense by taking away the things it did best with their fronts and 2-Shell coverage looks.
Eliminating Explosive Runs
From 2017-18, the Rams had the second most runs of 10 or more yards in the NFL. Most of that came via the zone run. Specifically, their wide and outside-zone runs stressed defenses, leading to both big plays to the outside and cutbacks set up by the defense’s aggressive flow to the edge.
Fangio’s response was to take away the outside as an option. One of the alignments he used was a 6-1 with 4 down linemen, a linebacker set up off the edge to one side, and the nickel DB aligned off the edge to the other:
This was the famed 6-1 look that Belichick would bludgeon the Rams with in Super Bowl LIII two months later. As you can see below, it took away the outside by alignment, forcing running back Todd Gurley inside immediately where the Bears had 4 D-linemen penetrating upfield to eliminate the cutback:
On one play in the second half, Gurley made the mistake of trying to force the issue to the outside. The result was a 5-yard loss:
The Bears didn’t use this specific alignment a ton. But even when they didn’t, they utilized wide-9’s or other 5-man fronts signaling to the offense that the outside was closed. Sometimes they’d bring a blitz off the edge to force everything back inside as well. This turned the run game into a battle between interior lines, where the Bears had a distinct advantage.
The inability to even threaten outside prevented over-pursuit by the defense and eliminated any cutback lanes. This all added up to the absence of big plays on the ground. Gurley finished with just one run of 10+ yards and only gained 28 yards on 11 carries.
The score was never really out of hand at any point in the game (The Bears would win 15-6). However, the Rams practically abandoned their ground game, calling runs on just 13 of 61 plays. With the engine that made the Rams offense go eliminated, the Bears could turn their attention elsewhere.
Neutralizing Play-Action
The Bears’ approach to L.A.’s rushing attack limited the effectiveness of their play-action passing game as well, which happened to be a significant part of their offense. Jared Goff led all quarterbacks in 2018 with 2,023 passing yards and 15 touchdowns on play-action (according to PFF). Those totals accounted for 43.2% of his passing yards and 46.9% of his TDs that season.
Against the Bears, however, Goff would complete just 5 of 10 passes for 46 yards off of play action. And the Rams called it on just 23% of passes that night, compared to a season average of 36%.
The way Chicago shut off the perimeter by using the 6-1, wide-9’s, and blitzes off the edge kept the Rams from effectively using play-action off of their outside-zone running game. This was largely because the run fakes took Goff into pressure: