The Chicago Bears need to add a pass rusher!
Sign one. Trade for one. Find one.
It was a recurring cry from fans from the end of the NFL draft until … well, until the Philadelphia Eagles scooped up 33-year-old free agent Za’Darius Smith on Monday. Not much is left on the shelves at the edge rusher store now.
Overlooked the entire time was the fact Dayo Odeyingbo received the largest contract in free agency for a defensive end, signing a three-year, $48 million deal with the Bears that effectively guarantees him $33 million for the first two seasons.
The only deal that was close was the three-year, $43.5 million contract the New England Patriots gave Harold Landry, a 29-year-old pass rusher with more career production than Odeyingbo, 25, but without the size that Bears defensive coordinator Dennis Allen covets.
General manager Ryan Poles went from trying to find August Band-Aids for the pass rush to prioritizing the position by spending money in March. The Bears see Odeyingbo as a two-way player who can improve the pass rush and be a stout run defender, with the kind of size (6-foot-5, 282 pounds) and length (35¼-inch arms) that fits Allen’s prototype for the position.
Odeyingbo had a sack and two quarterback hits and drew a holding penalty against fill-in Minnesota Vikings left tackle Justin Skule in Monday’s 27-24 loss at Soldier Field. On the Vikings’ first third down, Odeyingbo walked Skule back into the pocket to set up tackle Gervon Dexter Sr.’s sack.
“There were times when he caved in one side of the pocket,” a pro scout said. “Extreme speed to power, good leg drive. That’s the type of rep you show to someone and say, ‘Minnesota can’t play this guy at left tackle.’
“Odeyingbo is very explosive off the ball. Could he have more sacks than Montez Sweat? He could. He’s a really explosive player. He’s not Micah Parsons (or) T.J. Watt because he’s so big and physical. He doesn’t have that elite bend to him where he can turn the corner. … He can bend but he is more straight-line power.”
Odeyingbo needs to parlay a good debut into more solid outings to justify Poles’ spending and plan for the front. The Bears have had Week 1 flashes from edge defenders the last three seasons only to see them fade quickly.
- Last year, newly acquired Darrell Taylor had a rousing debut in a 24-17 victory over the Tennessee Titans with two sacks, one forced fumble and eight tackles. He was pulling down Will Levis as the Titans quarterback made the ill-advised choice to pitch the ball away. Tyrique Stevenson intercepted and returned it for the winning score. Taylor looked like he might be a bargain of a complement to Sweat. He had one sack the rest of the season.
- The Bears made another August addition in 2023 when they signed Yannick Ngakoue to a one-year, $10.5 million contract. He had a sack and two tackles for a loss in the season-opening loss to the Green Bay Packers. Ngakoue was at two sacks when the Bears traded for Sweat after Week 8 and finished the season with four.
- Then-rookie Dominique Robinson looked like a fifth-round steal in the 2022 opener when he had 1½ sacks and seven tackles in an upset of the San Francisco 49ers. He didn’t have a sack the rest of the season and enters Sunday’s game in Detroit with two for his career.
Taylor and Ngakoue were tweeners. They have to play almost exclusively in pass-rushing situations and wouldn’t be ideal fits for Allen’s scheme. None of those three maintained a starter level of play. Odeyingbo is a three-down player and the Bears don’t have to worry if the situation is right when he’s on the field. That in itself should lead to more production.
The bet the Bears made was that Odeyingbo is entering the prime years of his career (he turns 26 on Sept. 24). The Indianapolis Colts, who drafted him in the second round in 2021, wanted to keep him but had critical holes in the secondary to fill. Odeyingbo had eight sacks in 2023, and while he produced only three last season, he registered 17 QB hits each year.
Bears defensive line coach Jeremy Garrett was an assistant at Vanderbilt during Odeyingbo’s junior season there in 2019, so he was able to give a complete picture of the player both on the field and off.
“I wasn’t surprised on Monday,” Garrett said. “He is very intentional in practice and the walk-throughs, meetings. He wants to get better. He works on his craft.
“All of what you see him from him in the game, we’ve seen him do 100 times. Practice or walk-throughs, it doesn’t matter, he’s always taking his mind to game-like situations.”
The biggest question when it comes to the pass rush is whether Sweat can regain the form he displayed in 2023, when he had 12½ sacks and led both the Bears (six) and Washington Commanders (6½) in a season split between the organizations. If he can rebound from a 5½-sack season in 2024, the rest should fall into place.
Yes, the coaching cliche that the pass rush is “four as one” — as evident on Dexter’s sack of J.J. McCarthy — is true. But Sweat needs to rise to the level of a contract that averages $24.5 million per season. If that doesn’t happen, it’s difficult to pin shortcomings on the rest of the group.
One reason the Bears probably held firm with what they have leading up to the formation of the original 53-man roster is that second-year pro Austin Booker had a strong training camp and led the NFL with four sacks in the preseason. Although he’s on injured reserve, it stands to reason the team believes it will be close to a minimum stay (four games). Otherwise, Poles probably would have sought help.
Odeyingbo regularly lined up on the interior for the Colts, and he played three snaps inside against the Vikings. It’s something the Bears probably can experiment with more once Booker returns. The idea of matching up someone as powerful as Odeyingbo on a less athletic interior lineman has to appeal to Allen.
He’s working to settle in with a new team and focused on making good on the organization’s commitment to him.
“My whole philosophy is continuously growing,” Odeyingbo said. “I intend to always be ascending. I came into the league with a lot to learn. For me, it’s continuously getting better. Not year by year but being better Week 8 than I was Week 1.”
Yes, Odeyingbo heard the calls for Poles to seek help in the form of another edge rusher over the offseason and into training camp too.
“You see stuff on social media, but I tried to distance myself from that,” he said. “I try not to pay attention to narratives that change every day on social media.”
New edge rushers have disappeared within the blink of an eye the last three seasons, so Odeyingbo has to avoid that. If he does and has a productive game Sunday in Detroit against talented Lions offensive tackles Taylor Decker and Penei Sewell, who knows? Maybe the narrative will flip by Monday.
Scouting report
Graham Glasgow, Lions center
Information for this report was obtained from NFL scouts.
Glasgow, 6-foot-6 and 315 pounds, is in his 10th season in the league and seventh with the Lions, who drafted him in the third round out of Michigan in 2016 and brought him back in 2023. The Aurora native and Marmion alumnus has made 123 career starts.
After the offseason retirement of Frank Ragnow, the Lions shifted Glasgow from guard. He played center previously for the Lions and Denver Broncos but is more natural at guard. He has rookie second-round pick Tate Ratledge on his right side and Christian Mahogany, a sixth-round pick in 2024, on his left.
“He’s probably, at best, a league-average center,” the scout said. “Their interior is the weakest part of that offensive front. Glasgow is a mauler. He fits the profile of what Detroit wants up front. They want big, physical guys that are drive blockers and can displace defenders off the ball. He can set a good anchor.
“What he struggles with is when he gets schemed and singled up in pass protection, which he should get from the Bears. They will load some fronts and walk a linebacker up, and you have to slide the center to one side or the other. He can be exposed more in pass blocking.
“He’s in a challenging spot with inexperienced starters on each side of him from a communication standpoint. And also the inability to have experience with the guys you’re playing next to. That matters when you’re combo blocking and passing off a stunt inside. There has to be chemistry built there and they don’t have that yet. That’s something I’m looking to expose if I’m Dennis Allen.”