The Chicago Bears took down Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to improve to an improbable 4-1 record almost a third of the way through the season. A lot of people will point to Nick Foles getting the best of Brady again and then not shaking his hand after the game. However, the real story was a Bears defense that laid seven hits on Brady with three sacks, eight passes deflected, and five total tackles for a loss.
On the daily Locked On Bears Podcast, host Loren Cox breaks down the Bears' big win over the Buccaneers and how the defense was able to rattle and stop Tom Brady. Khalil Mack deserves a lot of the credit:
Loren Cox: To me, this was the Khalil Mack show. It's why Tom Brady wasn't able to hit some of those consistent plays downfield. And you can see from a Buccaneers standpoint, the excuses are there, right? I mean, his wide receivers are hurt. He's down to his backup tight. I mean, Gronkowski is a little bit banged up and a little bit old, and O.J. Howard is out for the year and Mike Evans isn't 100%, Scott Miller isn't 100%. He's throwing to guys like Tyler Johnson and Justin Watson that none of us have really heard of. You can sort of excuse some of that from the Buccaneers' offense, but they had been playing pretty darn well, in spite of all of that in recent weeks
This Bears defense, they got home, and it wasn't like they had to go all out to blitz Tom Brady all game. Generally blitzing Tom Brady is a poor strategy because he's very good at finding where the opening is going to be in your defense when you're blitzing because you just won't have as many guys back in coverage. It was a lot of those four and five-man rushes, a lot of stunts, getting through, and getting home. Sometimes it was just Khalil Mack and company winning their one-on-one pass rushers that were a problem for this defense too often last year, but it was 100% there against the Buccaneers.
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