INDIANAPOLIS — When asked about ice breaking with his new team, Bears defensive coordinator Dennis Allen went back to the basics ahead of the NFL Combine this week.
An old-fashioned road trip.
Through a three-hour drive from Chicago to Indianapolis Monday, Allen conducted some informal team bonding alongside driver Kevin Koch (assistant linebackers coach) as well as fellow passengers Kenny Norton III (defensive quality control coach) and Bill Johnson (senior defensive assistant).
"You spend a few hours in a car with somebody, you kind of get to know them a little bit better," Allen told ChicagoBears.com. "I think that's just all part of what
this is about."
This being his new role of leading the Bears defense — which first and foremost, begins with establishing chemistry with his
assistant coaches — all of which were announced last week.
With 23 years of NFL experience, Allen feels fortunate to have familiarity with a large portion of his defensive staff, making for a "pretty seamless transition" to Chicago. Still, Allen is responsible for ensuring his assistant not only work well with him but can gel together to create one set of standards for the players to later buy into.
"The coordinator's job isn't to tell everybody what to do and how to do it and when to do it," Allen said. "The coordinator's job is to coordinate all the different personalities, all the different thoughts and ideas, and bring them all together to put out one product. That's really what I want to be able to do is take everybody's strengths and try to put them in positions to utilize those strengths.
"Hopefully then, we can all cover up for each individual's weaknesses because we all have them. I think if we're able to do that, we've got a lot of variety in terms of what we have on our staff from, experience, youth, energy, intelligence."
Coordinating the group of personalities won't come in the form of rigid icebreakers, rather organic moments like the road trip, an all-staff dinner Wednesday at the combine or simply from spending long hours watching film at Halas Hall together.
Spending the entire week together in Indianapolis will certainly add a new layer of understanding for the coaches, which will soon carry over to not just the players the Bears are scouting at the combine, but the ones already in the building.
"Everybody has to believe in the culture that I'm trying to build," Allen said. "That starts with me and creating that vision for our staff. Then when we get the players in, it's our job to create that same vision and pass that on down to the players. The players, they want to be coached, they want to be held accountable. That's really what they all want and so that's our job as coaches to do that.
"But the number one thing we have to do is we have to set the standard for what's expected. Because I think once they know what the standard is, 99% of the world are pleasers. They want to do right. I think this group will be no different."
In just a few weeks on the job, Allen has connected with many leaders on the Bears defense over the phone and in person such as linebackers Tremaine Edmunds and T.J. Edwards, safeties Jaquan Brisker and Kevin Byard III as well as defensive end Montez Sweat.
While each players' response to Allen has varied, the veteran coach can gauge an overall sense of excitement for the upcoming offseason program which begins in April.
"The guys are really excited about getting back in the building and getting started," Allen said. "They're excited about what we've been able to do to this point in the offseason. I've talked to a handful of guys and that is part of what I've done over some of my free time this week — trying to reach out to a couple more guys."
Not only is Allen working to connect with the established players, he's scouting the next class of NFL athletes. With six years of NFL head coaching experience, most recently with the Saints from 2022-24, Allen found a newfound sense of "free time" earlier in the week before on-field workouts began at the combine.
Allen created a little office in his hotel room and spent plenty of time Tuesday and Wednesday "watching a ton of tape," diving into college evaluations. He empowered his staff to do the same, so the group can hit the ground running with building a defensive scheme once they're back at Halas Hall next week.
"The combine is always an exciting time," Allen said. "The whole league is here, so you get a chance to see a lot of people and visit with a lot of people. It's just the excitement of what are the things that we can potentially add to our roster to give us a chance to be successful. And, there's certainly a lot of really good players. Now it's just about trying to identify the ones that fit what we want to do in all phases and fit the culture that we want to make sure that we build here."
While Allen has taken control of the Bears defensive unit — a job he's thrived in with eight years of NFL defensive coordinator experience — his partnership with head coach Ben Johnson remains critical.
During his press conference Tuesday, Bears general manager Ryan Poles noted that Allen's experience brings a level of support to the new head coach. In an
exclusive interview with ChicagoBears.com, Johnson said he's been able to "lean heavily into" Allen from the combine perspective and in terms of operations back at Halas Hall.
Allen will continue to be a strong sounding board for Johnson as he dives further into his first year as a head coach. However, the defensive coordinator believes Johnson has already "done a great job," providing another level of excitement for the 2025 season to start rolling.
"The number one thing he did was he took his time and made sure he hired a staff that he felt like would complement him and his strengths and weaknesses," Allen said. "I think he did an outstanding job with that. He's certainly staying busy with a lot of different things; you're trying to install a new system offensively, defensively, the kicking game — he's overseeing all of those three aspects as well as, what are we doing in free agency? What are we doing in the draft?
"There's obviously a lot on his on his plate. He does a really good job of gathering information, evaluating the information and then making the best decision he can make."
