Bears coordinators Dennis Allen (defense), Press Taylor (offense) and Richard Hightower (special teams) spoke to the media Thursday at Halas Hall. Here are the nine most interesting things they said:
(1) Taylor's favorite pass thrown by Caleb Williams in last Sunday's 59-37 season-opening win over the Panthers was his 22-yard touchdown to Cole Kmet.
With perfect touch and accuracy, Williams dropped the ball over linebacker Devin Lloyd and into the veteran tight end's outstretched arms in the end zone.
"You couldn't have put it in a better spot," Taylor said. "It was actually really good coverage. They ended up picking up the kind of sneaky route through the back door there pretty well. If you don't put that on the outside shoulder, there's no shot at it. That was a great throw. That was as good a catch, though, too. That's a tough catch to make. You probably lack a lot of vision on the ball right there. You're just trusting that your hand-eye coordination can make the play in the end zone. That was impressive by both those guys."
(2) Taylor echoed coach Ben Johnson's comment that preparing to face a Vikings defense coordinated by Brian Flores is like "mental war."
"That's exactly what it is," Taylor said in advance of Sunday's home opener versus Minnesota. "You can find a little bit of everything in the defense through years of tape with him. Every game looks a little bit different … so you're trying to look and see, 'What do they do well that they might want to go back to?'
"You're trying to figure out, 'How can we best utilize our time in practice? How can we plan for everything that can possibly come up that's been shown before?' You have to be extremely thorough. You don't want to simplify too much where you pigeonhole yourself because you kind of want enough flexibility where at some point in the game when you kind of get a feel for how the game's being played, you have the ability to pivot and go down that way.
"Whether it's a little bit more man, a little bit more zone, a little bit more pressure, no pressure, five-man fronts, four-man fronts, you need to have all that in your arsenal or else you're going to get stuck here and you showed up without enough ammo. That's the challenge of playing these guys."
(3) It's no coincidence that the last three NFL teams that have rushed for six TDs in a regular-season game all have had Dan Roushar as their offensive line coach.
The Bears accomplished that feat last Sunday after the Saints did it Nov. 12, 2017, against the Bills and Dec. 25, 2020, versus the Vikings. Roushar is in his second season with the Bears, his 12th in the NFL and his 43rd in coaching.
"Dan's just so detailed and so relentless," Taylor said. "He's got such a high standard for his group, for himself. He holds himself very accountable for the performance of his unit, which is something you really appreciate about position coaches. He's had tons of success, so he's got experience in all sorts of schemes, he's got answers to a lot of different issues that arise and different solutions or possibilities that come up.
"Ultimately, he loves sitting there watching tape with his guys. He's upset when we only have an hour to meet. He wants 3-4 hours. He is just exhaustive. He and [assistant offensive line coach] Kyle DeVan as well, just exhaustive in his pursuit to help his guys improve, and that's the biggest with him that you feel. He took so much pride in seeing Darnell [Wright] succeed and Darnell get an extension. Dan was just proud of the work that Darnell has put in and was able to be rewarded for it. He's fantastic. Can't say enough good things about Dan."
(4) Taylor understands why Johnson told reporters that he felt he didn't call a good game despite the Bears generating 59 points in their opener.
The 59 points tied for the second most by an NFL team in Week 1 and were the fourth most points the Bears have produced in any game.
"He just holds himself to a very high standard," Taylor said. "So, if we get out of whack with a call on a play or something like that or it didn't come off the way he wanted based on whatever happened, he's always going to be critical of that. He admits it to the players. He admits it to the coaching staff, if it weren't exactly the way he wanted, and I think that's your leader holding himself to a high standard. Everybody else, you want to meet that standard as well."
(5) Allen stated that the Bears defense is in "a race to improve this week, as are all the other football teams in the National Football League."
"You go out and play Week 1, sometimes you play great, sometimes you don't play as well as you want to," Allen said. "You've got to make the necessary corrections, and then we're in a race to improve and be better this week against a really good opponent."
In last Sunday's win over the Panthers, the Bears defense allowed five TDs and 478 total yards but forced three three-and-outs and generated two takeaways—with a third coming on special teams via a muffed punt.
Asked what specific areas he would like to see improve in Week 2, Allen said: "No. 1 is we've got to do a better job of executing our job and making sure that we're eliminating the mental mistakes in terms of just not being exactly where we need to be when we need to be there. I think that's a big focus.
"There's a lot of areas that we have to improve. We've got to do a better job controlling the line of scrimmage, both in the run game and the pass game. So, we're working to improve those things this week."
(6) Allen has simple advice for Jaylon Johnson and Tyrique Stevenson after the cornerbacks did not perform as well in the opener as they had throughout training camp.
"Line up again," Allen said. "Let's go. Week 2, you know what I mean? We have to be man enough to admit and see where we fell short, all right? What can we do to improve our performance? What can we do to maybe improve our preparation, those types of things? And then let's focus on playing outstanding this week, because that one's done. Let's move on to this one and let's play better as a group."
(7) Hightower found it interesting that the Panthers kept kickoffs away from rookie returner Zavion Thomas.
Veteran Josh Blackwell had all four of the Bears' kickoff returns in the opener, averaging 21.3 yards with a long of 23 yards.
"When you take a look at that game, they definitely were kicking the ball away from him," Hightower said. "We want the ball in his hands. We're going to do everything we can to get the ball in his hands. And he's got to go get some of those, which we're going to make sure that he's working to do that. But they definitely tried to put it in the corner and tried to keep it away from him. I haven't seen that this early on, but it is what it is."
Thomas was selected by the Bears in the third round of the draft. In four seasons at Mississippi State (2022-23) and LSU (2024-25), he averaged 9.7 yards with one touchdown on 60 punt returns and 27.2 yards with two TDs on 35 kickoff returns.
Thomas continued to show his big-play ability in the Bears' preseason finale in Tennessee with a 39-yard kickoff return.
(8) Hightower stated that the "banana ball" punt that Panthers returner Jimmy Horn Jr. muffed is just one of many punts in Tory Taylor's repertoire.
The banana ball, which rotates sideways and bends like the shape of a banana, is something that Taylor has worked on since he grew up playing Australian Rules Football.
"Tory's been kicking balls like that forever," Hightower said. "I think he's perfected his craft to where he feels really good about hitting it now … But there are several different balls. You've got a boomerang ball. You've got a snap ball. You've got all different kind of punts. That one just happened to play out well for us on that particular play."
(9) Hightower described the Vikings' Myles Price as a "dynamic returner that can take the ball to the house at any time."
In a 39-22 season-opening win over the Packers last Sunday, the second-year pro averaged 35.8 yards on five kickoff returns with a long of 68 yards.
"We've got a huge challenge this week with Price," Hightower said. "This dude is a really good returner, a phenomenal player. We are going to have to be on our details this week."
Hightower added that the Vikings have a lot of "big men that run fast" on special teams.
"Speed is good, but big speed is special and they've got big speed," he said. "We've got to make sure we keep our leverage, stay in phase with the ball and make sure we get to the ball and finish. This is going to be a great challenge for us, and it always is, but great competitors want great challenges."
