Q&A with Peanut Tillman on fixing the Bears’ defense

Peanut Tillman is working for peanuts. To launch his “#ShellOut” viral campaign with the National Peanut Board on Wednesday, the former Bears cornerback talked about the team’s defense and what he’d like to see change.

On the Bears’ NFL record-low 11 takeaways last year:

“Just off my observation last year, not enough takeaways. This game, this is a game about takeaways. That’s something the defense used to do fairly well and they kinda fell in that department last year. Hopefully they can get more than, I think it was, 11.

“Under Lovie Smith’s regime, we led the league in takeaways for 10 or 12 years. it goes to show you how important takeaways are. Hopefully they can get that thing turned around and get this thing rolling.

“I think Bears fans, they deserve it. I really do.”

On lack of defensive consistency:

“Defensively, they were inconsistent as a whole. One thing, when I played, I’m gonna make mistakes — I’m gonna give up a touchdown, I’ll miss a tackle here and there, but I’d rather miss a tackle once every seventh game or give up a touchdown once every seventh game. For the most part, I tried to have a good track record of my performance. I tried to be even-keel. I wanted to be consistent.

“In this league it’s hard to be consistent. They’re paying the other guy, Calvin Johnson, ‘X’ amount of millions of dollars to go make that catch. And I know the other team is going to make their plays.

“My mindset, is, they’re paying me a lot of money to make this play. there is no prize for second place. I have to win. For me, consistency is everything, especially at this level, at the highest level.”

On comparing new Bears QB Mike Glennon to Brock Osweiler:

“ I’m not saying he’s going to have a bad season, but I’m just talking about, Brock Osweiler was the No. 1 backup quarterback coming out via free agency. I think that’s just kinda who he was. “

On his nickname:

“Over the years, I’ve met so many fans that named their kids or their dogs, or their mom or someone in their family or somebody gave them the nickname ‘Peanut.’ There’s an obsession, there’s a craving for peanuts in this country.”

On getting gifts of peanuts:

“Haven’t you seen ‘Forrest Gump?’ … All the shrimp. You can boil ’em, bake ’em, barbecue them, smoke them, grill the, fry them. The same thing with peanuts … I’ll be Bubba and you can be my Forrest Gump and we can talk about how many different varieties of peanuts there are out there.”