Chicago Bears Stat of the Day: Interception Rate
By Erik Lambert
People were really upset at the Chicago Bears when they took Mitch Trubisky with the #2 pick. Yet much of the ire had nothing to do with the man himself.
It was more a culmination of things. By that point the fans were angry with the team for two reason. The first being their rather lukewarm showing in free agency that saw them whiff on most of the top targets. Especially the cornerbacks. So going into the draft there was a hope/assumption the team might use their #3 pick on one of the top defensive backs on the board. There were some intriguing options to be sure.
Then GM Ryan Pace pulled his swerve, taking Trubisky instead. Now people aren’t sure what to make of the Bears defense. Is it any better than it was in 2016? To be fair it wasn’t the worst unit in 2016, but it had its fair share of problems too. Perhaps the biggest was their inability to get interceptions. Hence the interest in top defensive backs.
Their team interception rate was the third-worst in the NFL, notching just eight picks in 530 passing attempts against them. That averages out to 1.5%.
"“Team interception rate measures the percent of opponent pass attempts that are picked off for an interception by the defensive unit.Interception rate = defensive interceptions / opponent passing attempts”"
Prince Amukamara and other new faces are under the gun
If this is a team that wants its defense to lead the way, they have to do better than that. So when they failed to add proven quality in free agency, they shifted to quantity. Cornerbacks Prince Amukamara and Marcus Cooper and safeties Quintin Demps and Eddie Jackson were all added in the space of two months. Most of them come either with top level grades as ball hawks or coverage specialists.
Cooper and Demps combined for 10 interceptions alone in 2016. Jackson had six interceptions his last full year at Alabama in 2015. The potential is definitely there for the Bears to get a major uptick on that stat in 2017. Of course they still have to play the games. That, more than anything, is what continues to make Chicago fans nervous. They don’t know what to expect. Few things are feared more than the unknown.