Jeffery Simmons Makes Life Easy

Nothing sticks out quite like an All-Pro defensive lineman suddenly landing on a good team. For most football fans, Jeffery Simmons has been one of the league's best defensive tackles by reputation only. A run of playoff appearances to start his career in Tennessee gave way to a handful of lost seasons, in which he continued to anchor the Titans' defensive front while the losses piled up around him. Last night, however, we got to remember what it's like to see Simmons play in a game that matters.

The Bears traded for Simmons last Thursday, which didn't leave him much time to integrate with the team ahead of a Monday night showdown against the Seahawks. "My first day in, I was in the building until dang near 10:00 at night, trying to get the playbook," he told the ESPN broadcast after the game. No matter. As J.J. Watt pointed out, it doesn't take long for a defensive lineman to get up to speed. One has the same job in Chicago as he does in Tennessee: Shove the big guy in front of you out of the way and go tackle the guy with the ball. Simmons did plenty of shoving during the Bears' 34-17 win, and in the process may have proven that the Bears now have a whole new way to win football games.

Simmons got his first sack as a Bear on the Seahawks' fourth play of the game, ghosting right past his blocker and dragging Sam Darnold down with one arm. He would finish the game with six tackles (two for a loss), a sack, and a pass deflection.

As is usually the case when it comes to elite interior lineman, it's not just Simmons's individual numbers that demonstrate what he will mean to this Bears' defense. A player like Simmons is a force multiplier, someone whose mere presence on the field produces cracks in the opposing offense for his teammates to exploit. Lined up next to Simmons was Montez Sweat, who hit Sam Darnold three times, sacked him once, and looked like he was having more fun playing football than he has in months. While Simmons was soaking up blocks and sending ripples of panic through the Seahawks' offensive line, Sweat was making himself at home in Darnold's chest.

Aside from a few big plays from Jaxon Smith-Njigba, the Seahawks just never got anything going. It felt like they spent the whole game in third-and-long, and they only converted on third down once. When Simmons was on the field, Seattle averaged three yards per play, which was a dramatic shift in how Chicago's defense usually operates. The unit has acquitted itself well in terms of yards and points allowed, but they mostly have the offense's ability to stay on the field to thank for that. When the defense has been out there, they've struggled to slow anyone down, becoming just one of two teams in the league allowing six yards or more per play.

There's one other stat from Monday's game that might be the truest expression of Simmons's value to this team. The greatest gift that an interior lineman can provide his defense is the ability to pressure the quarterback without blitzing. Nothing more reliably scrambles NFL offenses than a defense whose front four is ferocious and relentless enough to shed blocks, speed up quarterbacks, and force throws into coverage. Coming into last night's game, the Bears defense was more or less on-trend with the rest of the league's blitz-happy defenses, sending extra rushers on about 40 percent of drop backs. On Monday night, however, the Bears' blitz rate dropped to 25 percent. The panicked state Darnold spent most of the game in would have you believe that the Bears were going out of their way to send as much pressure as possible, but all they were really doing was letting Simmons do his thing.

That it is now possible to write an entire blog about the Bears defeating the defending Super Bowl champions in a primetime game without once mentioning Chicago's offense is a bad sign for the rest of the league. There's not a ton to report from that side of the ball: Caleb Williams was efficient, D'Andre Swift ran for three scores, Luther Burden had some nice catches. None of that is why the Bears won.