00:00So are you a believer, Carmen Vitale, in the notion that the Bears' interior defensive line is better than the
00:06outside world thinks?
00:06So yes and no. I recall, this sounds familiar, this sounds like what we were saying about the edge rotation
00:14last year.
00:16And I think a lot of the, this was masked by the amount of takeaways that the Bears' defense got,
00:22which isn't necessarily a replicable strategy at this point.
00:26And I think you saw where their defensive priorities were this offseason, but you got Dylan Thienemann as your first
00:32pick in the draft.
00:33You go out and you get Kobe Bryant, where Dennis Allen absolutely wants to run more of his type of
00:40defense, which is just a bunch of versatile guys, athletes, capital A, in the defensive backfield.
00:45Well, that's now backfired because you have Kyler Gordon without working soft tissue.
00:51You have Kobe Bryant out for probably the season at this point.
00:55And you have all these other guys stepping up to where you're like, all right, this was supposed to be
01:00the focal point of the defense.
01:01And now the defensive line, there's going to be more pressure on them to get pressure.
01:07And the one thing I'll say for the defensive line, though, is that the interior rotation to Ben's point and
01:12to Ben's credit is deeper than I think we realize.
01:16And at the very least, that allows you to stay fresh on the interior to try to get that push.
01:21You know, the shortest way to the quarterback is up the A-gap.
01:24So if you can get a push from some of those interior guys, if you can get Javon Dexter back
01:28healthy and he can take a jump.
01:31If Grady Jarrett still has stuff left in the tank, but then you have guys like Neville Gallimore, you brought
01:35him in.
01:36He's a big dude.
01:37He's going to take up space at the very least.
01:39If you can get that rotation, and now apparently you're going to get some Jordan Vandenberg, your six-round pick.
01:46If that can be your rotation, I can buy that.
01:49But I think where this is coming from is they essentially have to believe this because of the domino effect
01:56of how they wanted to build the defense that has, they've just caught a couple of really unlucky breaks.
02:01Not to mention, when you look at the Drew Dahlman surprise retirement, all of a sudden center had to become
02:08a priority where that wasn't a priority beforehand, which ate up not only, I mean, you only traded a fifth
02:13-round pick to go get Garrett Bradbury, but you also then drafted Logan Jones.
02:17And would you have done both of those things if Drew Dahlman hadn't retired?
02:21And the answer is no.
02:22And did that take the place of either interior defensive help or edge help?
02:27And I agree, when it came around draft time, the value wasn't there for a lot of these guys while
02:35they were picking.
02:35And I understand that.
02:36But there's been a domino effect to the point where I'm like, all right, yeah, I think you just have
02:42to will yourself to believe this.
02:44And maybe if you say it out loud, it'll come true.
