The expected replacement of Jay Cutler with Brian Hoyer at quarterback involves making a forced change at the most important change on the Bears offense. Less visible but with only a little less significance is a similar change happening on a Bears defense that has been better than the offense, but only by a little.

The defense will be without its best player to this point – nose tackle Eddie Goldman – because of an ankle sprain suffered in the loss to Philadelphia. The Bears have seen opponents scheme them out of their preferred 3-4, with Goldman in the middle, flanked by Akiem Hicks and Mitch Unrein. But among Bears defensive linemen, only Hicks has played more snaps than Goldman, who also leads all Bears defensive linemen with seven tackles.

In Goldman the Bears have a designer NFL nose tackle – 6-4, 325 pounds. Without him, even with their rotation approach, they undergo a major downsizing with a player – Will Sutton – who started seven games last year, two at nose tackle, but who was inactive two weeks ago and now could be starting at a spot where the Bears need to win one-on-one battles as a starting point for their run defense.

“Yep,” Sutton said, laughing. “That’s the NFL. Anything can happen and that’s why you keep working because you never know.”

A year ago Sutton was projected to be on a roster bubble, a “doubtful” after coming into the NFL as a third-round Phil Emery draft pick, fitting the template of a 3-technique in a 4-3 scheme. Sutton, an undersized (6-0, 295 pounds) inside defender, appeared to fit nowhere along the three-man front of the 3-4 of John Fox/Vic Fangio.

But he became a favorite of line coach Jay Rodgers because of his versatility, able to work as a five-technique away from the football, and surprisingly capable as a nose tackle despite his lack of prototypical mass.

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Sutton’s viability in a spot usually reserved for massive lineman traces to the kind of 3-4 scheme Fox and Fangio favor, one involving more speed and quickness than the traditional 3-4 with three down-lineman serving effectively as run-stuffers with responsibility for the gaps on either side of the offensive lineman.

“In our defense we don’t do a lot of ‘two-gap,’” Sutton said. “We line up and play a system that is really gap-and-a-half, meaning our gap and help with one other. We don’t line up head-up, shaded a lot of the time.

“That helps out a lot. I don’t have to guess which way a blocker is going. He has to guess where I’m going because I know which is my gap responsibility.”

Sutton, who was third among Bears defensive linemen with 416 snaps last season (40.4 percent of opponents plays), is a survivor. Among defensive linemen, only Goldman (39) had more than Sutton’s 37 tackles. Going into game 16 last season he was the only defensive lineman active who had been with the Bears in training camp. He started that game along with Mitch Unrein.

Offenses are typically adjusted when a replacement quarterback steps in. Defenses are somewhat forced to react to personnel and other offensive moves, but one question for the Bears will be what if anything changes when the nose tackle is downsized by 35 pounds.

At the same time, this is Sutton’s moment.

“Sometimes, especially early in the season when maybe you haven’t had a look in a live game, I’ve seen sometimes a guy comes in and does outstanding,” said Fox. “You just haven’t seen that much of him.

“Will has played for us at times. But he’s improved as a player as well, more adapted to what we’re asking him to do in our defense, prior to our coming here. I’m kinda curious to see how he does. You never kind of know until a guy does it. We have all the confidence in him or we wouldn’t have picked him and kept him.”