Bears defensive end DeMarcus Walker scoffed at the idea he and teammates are facing real adversity with their 13 straight losses and 41 points allowed last week.
"I've been through worse in life," Walker said. "This is not adversity to me. This is adversity: In life, being a kid on Section 8.
"C'mon now, this is nothing. We're blessed to wake up every morning, put on our shoes, put on two eyes, two hands and be able to have a job. You have to do it and give 110 percent. It's still September. We're still getting together and figuring out what it takes to win."
The Bears defense didn't practice together as a full unit until a week and a half before the regular season—not in the off-season, not in training camp or preseason. Then they lost their defensive coordinator when Alan Williams resigned, and now head coach Matt Eberflus will call defenses the rest of the season.
So they figure they're going to have to piece things together and it could take time, although injuries in their secondary are making it difficult now, too.
"If everybody buys into the defense, everybody does their job at a high level, we'll have takeaways, we'll have sacks, we'll have interceptions, things like that," defensive end Yannick Ngakoue said.
Ngakoue has their only sack a year after they had only 20 sacks to finish last in the NFL. More pressure up front is something Eberflus has pointed to as key for the defense to help create more takeaways.
"You know, it's something we got to do better," Eberflus said.
If they are, apparently it will have to be done by the front four because the Bears are last in the NFL in blitz percentage. They're blitzing 14.8% of the time."
"We're going to continue sending four guys and playing some coverage," Eberflus said. "We obviously got to send five some time, send six. But again, we just got to do a good job. We've gotten home some and we've missed some sacks in the pocket.
"We have to do a better job with that, making sure we do a good job of getting the guys down when we do have pressure. But again, that number has got to improve for sure."
Nagkoue has had eight sacks or more every single year in hkis career and believes it's more basic than blitzes or schemes.
"Just keep scratching and clawing," he said. "Rushing is not about just giving up. It's about continuing to fight.
"Like I said earlier, they (sacks) come in bunches. We can have a game where we have more than five sacks, it's all about just keep working."
Whether they can do it or not, it will be on Eberflus to make his own defensive system work. There is stability this week after the uncertainty of what was going on last week when Williams resigned.
"As a defense I just feel like we just believe in coach Flus," safety Jaquan Brisker said. "It's just his plan and we just have to execute coach Flus plan. We really didn't flinch, all the distractions. We're gonna have distractions. We're the Chicago Bears. Everybody has something to say. So we just gotta execute coach Flus' plan.
"It's about execution. We weren’t really distracted. I felt like we had a great week of energy. We had a lot of turnovers in practice and things like that. We just have to take it to the game."
Ngakoue still has faith in Eberflus' system, even after 41 points allowed last week and 51 the first two weeks.
"If everybody buys into the defense, everybody does their job at a high level, we'll have takeaways, we'll have sacks, we'll have interceptions, things like that," Ngakoue said.
More must-reads: