Bears safety Eddie Jackson is coming up on 11 months since his last interception, and every day of that drought has been exasperating.
He’s been a game changer since his days at Alabama and was an all-pro with seven takeaways and two touchdowns last season. But he’s played more than 600 snaps this season and all he has to show for it is a fumble recovery in Week 3.
It’s driving him nuts.
“This is the longest I’ve ever been in my life without an interception, without a touchdown — ever,” Jackson said. “So it’s getting stressful. I’m just happy we won this last game, but being that type of competitor, you want the ball.
“It’s gonna come. That’s all I keep telling myself.”
Everyone on the defense feels that way. The Bears led the NFL in takeaways last season with 36, including a league-high 27 interceptions, but now sit tied for 14th with 12.
They’re still fourth in opponent scoring and ninth in yards allowed, but they’re not nearly as scary without the takeaways.
The Bears depend on defensive scoring, too, with an offense that doesn’t scare anyone. Last season, defensive touchdowns and scores that came on short fields bumped the Bears from 22.4 to 26.3 points per game.
The only defender to score this season was safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix on a pick-six against the Redskins. It was one of five takeaways that night, and the Bears have had fewer than one per game otherwise.
With most of the 2018 starting lineup back for this season, how can this be?
“Oh man, I really can’t even answer that,” Jackson said. “You’ve just gotta continue to fly around and just try to make plays on the ball. That’s like a trick question. I really don’t know how to answer that.”
It’s hard to explain other than accepting that turnovers can be random. What prompts a quarterback to make a terrible choice on one hectic play and safely throw it out of bounds on another? And there’s no telling which way a ball is going to bounce on a fumble.
The Bears also haven’t forced many opponents into situations where they’re taking risks to get back into a game.
“They feel like they come in bunches,” coach Matt Nagy said. “And then for whatever reason, they just don’t come as much. We just want to make sure overall [with] the turnover margin, that we’re in the plus. And the higher you are, the better.”
They’re accomplishing Nagy’s goal of staying above water in turnover differential at plus-3, which is 12th in the NFL. That’s skewed, however, because they’ve been minus-1 outside of the Redskins game.
Facing the Rams on Sunday could help. They are tied for the seventh-most turnovers, and quarterback Jared Goff has thrown 10 interceptions in nine games.
The Bears were close on several plays against the Lions and backup quarterback Jeff Driskel, including two near-picks by Jackson.
He just missed getting a step in front of tight end T.J. Hockenson over the middle in the second quarter, but they collided as the ball arrived and neither player had a real chance to catch it. With a minute left and the Lions driving to tie the game, Jackson was in perfect position to grab an overthrow by Driskel, but Hockenson barely got a hand out to deflect it out of his reach.
An inch or two can make all the difference. The point is that Jackson isn’t playing any worse than he did last year. The rest of the defense mostly seems to be maintaining its performance as well. Sometimes, though, turnovers just don’t happen.
“I feel like I’m still playing well,” Jackson said. “Just trying to get in more positions to make plays, if that makes any sense... just dominate my square and my man. Whatever I’m in, just gotta dominate that.”
