Thread: "Peanut" Tillman is a Very Underrated CB..........................

September 12, 2011
Tillman continues to produce takeaways


By: Larry Mayer | Last Updated: 9/12/2011 2:46 PM



They’ve played together on the Bears defense for eight years, but middle linebacker Brian Urlacher still can’t quite figure out how cornerback Charles Tillman is so adept at stripping the ball from opponents.

“He’s unbelievable,” Urlacher said Monday, one day after Tillman forced the 25th fumble of his career in a 30-12 drubbing of the Atlanta Falcons. “He does it five times a day in practice. He does it all the time. He doesn’t even hit the ball hard. It’s like he barely hits it and the ball comes out.


Charles Tillman and Brian Urlacher have been Bears teammates since Tillman was drafted in 2003.“I don’t know how he does it. Maybe he has great hand-eye coordination. I don’t know, but he gets to the right spot on the ball every time and it pops out. It’s always in the back of his mind. He’s very cognizant of doing it and he gets it done all the time.”
Tillman’s 25 forced fumbles are the most by an NFL defensive back since he entered the league in 2003 as a second-round draft pick with the Bears. After recording seven in his first four seasons from 2003-06, he compiled 17 in his next four years from 2007-10.

Late in the first quarter Sunday, Tillman smacked the ball out of Falcons running back Michael Turner’s hands on an eight-yard run and Bears defensive end Julius Peppers recovered the fumble at the Bears’ 28.

“Every coach in the league knows how to teach taking the ball away, but to see a guy do it over and over just says an awful lot about him,” said coach Lovie Smith. Tillman has helped the Bears generate an NFL-high 238 takeaways since Smith arrived in 2004.

“It’s not like we surprise people,” Smith said. “When you play us, you know our guys are going to try to strip the ball. But [Tillman] does it, and once you see one guy doing it, guys catch onto that. We’re a young football team in a lot of ways, so we want them to see and just keep looking at how Charles continues to get the ball out.”

Although Smith and his assistants place a huge emphasis on generating takeaways, no one on the Bears defense is in Tillman’s league when it comes to forcing fumbles.

“It’s ingrained in all of our minds, but he’s just very good at it,” Urlacher said. “We all think about it. We try and rip it out. We try and punch it. I don’t know how he does it, but he gets it done.

"The guy is one of the all-time greats at doing that at corner or at any position. When [an opponent] catches the ball, he better put it away when [Tillman] is around him.”

"Of course it's technique, and everybody has technique," Smith said. "But I think it's a little bit more than that. I think you have a knack for some things. No one does it like he does."