Bears flip-floppers seeing dividends from Dennis Allen's methods

Injury uncertainty in the Bears secondary makes for a difficult situation heading into Baltimore but it almost seems like it lands directly in coordinator Dennis Allen's wheelhouse better than having a healthy and stable 11-man group.

That's because while Allen has been teaching players and positioning them to go after the football, they've also been moved around plenty to various positions during practices to help the defense be better prepared for games when they are short-handed.

Case in point, he had Tremaine Edmunds and T.J. Edwards switch between weakside and middle linebacker throughout the offseason and training camp. When Edwards was out injured, Edmunds could play either spot but more importantly now they can flip the two from play to play to confuse opposing quarterbacks.

"I think any time you have guys that  can do multiple things playing different positions I think that just allows you to be maybe a little bit more creative in terms of what you’re doing," Allen said. "We have a few chess pieces on our defense that we can move around and put in different positions and do some different things with. But that only works if you have smart enough players to understand what to do.

"And I think the work that our guys are putting in outside of the building off the practice field, outside of when they’re in there with the coaches and meeting with the coaches, I think that’s been a key part of our ability to play better over this, we’ll call it, last four-game stretch. So, and that will continue to be a big part of what we’ll do."

Another player who they moved around was slot cornerback Kyler Gordon and now that could help if they're also without cornerback Nahshon Wright because Gordon can move outside from the slot if required.