Edge rush production from last year dictates adding more help for Montez Sweat when free agency begins and not relying only on an interior rush in 2024.
defensive tackle with ears Justin Jones was asked to draw a comparison between the team’s impending loss of pass rush pressure and Yannick Ngakoue’s fractured ankle. As a result, the team’s primary weapon to pressure quarterbacks is Montez Sweat’s edge rush.
“He brings a different type of speed and agility to the game,” Jones stated. “Tez is the stronger individual. He still has a lot of power and is quick off the edge.
“Yannick is the more speed and agile guy off the edge.”
It appears that the Bears might have used someone with greater speed and agility than Ngakoue to assist Sweat.
Choosing not to bring back Ngakoue may be the easiest of their free agent decisions in March. Aside from his injury, the output provided to achieve the necessary play rep requirements fell well short of the $10.5 million the Bears paid for a one-year contract.
Although Ngakoue wasn’t their only choice for a defensive end in the free agency class, his selection was the most significant because it was a starting position.
Ngakoue’s strength has never been stopping the run, so it felt like a miss before it even began, but coach Matt Eberflus’ scheme places a lot of value on defensive ends being effective against the run by setting firm edges.
The single-gap defense strategy is exposed when selling out to get past the quarterback and counter the running and screen games.
If the speed rusher is at least interested in stopping the run, the combination of one strong defender against the edge pass and one speed rusher can be effective. This is not how Ngakoue is.
For Ngakoue, nothing much worked prior to Week 13, when he hurt his ankle.
He recorded the fewest quarterback hits (7), fewest tackles (22), fewest quarterback knockdowns (3), fewest pressures (11), and, most significantly, the fewest sacks (4) of his career.
These would have been understandable because he had never played fewer than fifteen games before. With most of those stats, though, Ngakoue was only two games below his prior worst and wasn’t even close to his previous lows. He had four sacks and had never gone under eight before. He had 11 and had never been below 26 pressure.
Finding someone else will be an obvious choice, and the Bears should consider exploring both the draft and free agency options.
This is due to the fact that their backup edge rusher, Rasheem Green, is a free agent, and they have never had even the smallest amount of performance from Dominique Robinson, the edge rusher.
They will have a fifth-round pick in 2022, which will be in Year 3 of 2024; Robinson is not a free agent. Six games after starting every game as a rookie, he was inactive. After having 1 1/2 sacks and 30 tackles in one year, he made only 12 tackles and half a sack the next.
Green did make a few contributions, at least. He blocked two of the five kicks he has stopped in his career, demonstrating a talent for the position. On 36% of the defensive possessions he was available, he was the fourth player in the rush with eight pressures and three sacks, but it wasn’t enough.
GM Ryan Poles and Eberflus stated last season that if their pass rush wasn’t coming from the edge, it could come from the middle of the line. This was because they hadn’t used a large portion of their league-high salary cap room for edge rushers. After only one week of training camp, they hastily signed Ngakoue after realizing their error.
Usually panic purchases fail, and this one did not.
They didn’t give them any rush to relieve pressure on the secondary, but they soon recognized that DeMarcus Walker, Green, Robinson, and Ngakoue, along with their new linebackers and tackle combination, were enough to stop the run.
In order to get Sweat in, they had to make a transaction.
Sweat turned everything around, and now they could choose from a group of free agent edge rushers to complement him, which could include Josh Allen of Jacksonville, Brian Burns of Carolina, Danielle Hunter of Minnesota, Bryce Huff and Carl Lawson of the Jets, Sweat’s former teammate Chase Young, Jonathan Greenard of Houston, Za’Darius Smith of Cleveland, Jadeveon Clowney of Baltimore, and Tennessee’s Denico Autry. Which of those would be accessible depends on whether franchise tags or late contract extensions are available.
Even if they do finally draft someone to accomplish that, expect Poles and Eberflus to be a little less adamant about being able to provide the necessary pass rush pressure with their defensive tackles this offseason and a little more interested in investing money on an edge complement for Sweat.