{"id":688659,"date":"2026-05-23T13:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T13:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/688659\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T13:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T13:56:08","slug":"bears-relying-on-montez-sweat-same-unit-to-fix-pass-rush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/688659\/","title":{"rendered":"Bears relying on Montez Sweat, same unit to fix pass rush"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAKE FOREST, Ill. — Throughout the 2026 offseason, the Chicago Bears<\/a> said they would prioritize fixing the team\u2019s weakest link: disrupting opposing quarterbacks.<\/p>\n

The Bears were interested in acquiring five-time Pro Bowl defensive end Maxx Crosby<\/a> until learning the price of a trade. Chicago felt that the way it handled free agency left multiple options available in the draft, but the Bears used only one of their seven draft picks on a defensive lineman, and not until selecting Georgia Tech defensive tackle Jordan van den Berg<\/a> 213th overall.<\/p>\n

The narrative around how the Bears will fix a unit that ranked 31st in pass rush win rate (29%) and 29th in pressure percentage (28%) went from needing more talent to emphasizing better coaching to getting the most out of the players the Bears already have.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re certainly going to coach better than what we did a year ago,\u201d coach Ben Johnson said. \u201cIt starts there. We\u2019ve made a concerted effort with how we\u2019re going to get that done.\u201d<\/p>\n

That directive caused defensive coordinator Dennis Allen to look inward to find a solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a lot of discussions this offseason about a lot of different things, and one of the things we identified was me,\u201d Allen said. \u201cWe focused so much on installing all the scheme last year because it was brand new, and we do have a high volume of things we carry in the defense. We focused so much on that that we lost sight of some of the fundamentals and techniques that it takes to function, to do those things.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we were as fundamentally sound defensively as we needed to be. So how do we have to coach it better? Well, let\u2019s minimize how much we\u2019re focused on the scheme, OK, and let\u2019s focus on not what we\u2019re gonna do but how we\u2019re gonna do it. I think that\u2019s how we\u2019re gonna improve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bears defensive line coach Jeremy Garrett can\u2019t remember another time in his career when coaches spent the first two weeks of the offseason without dissecting scheme. There was no talk of specific fronts or where players would line up. Everything was focused on three specific goals to hone technique:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been out at practice and you can see the improvement of the guys\u201d Garrett said. \u201cYou spend two weeks and all I\u2019m watching is individual. I\u2019m not watching the scheme. I\u2019m watching our get-off, our pad level, I\u2019m watching our drill work. We\u2019re correcting that. We\u2019re fixing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Statistical evidence supports Allen\u2019s assertion that the Bears\u2019 scheme is to blame for some of the pass rush\u2019s struggles, while injury concerns, talent discrepancy and execution issues are among the other reasons.<\/p>\n

The Bears sent four or fewer pass rushers on 72% of plays. That yielded a 5% sack percentage (23rd), 24% pressure percentage (30th) and 24% Pass Rush Win Rate (28th).<\/p>\n

The defense wasn\u2019t much more effective when rushing five or more (28% of plays). Chicago\u2019s sack percentage (8%, 14th), pressure percentage (39th, 24th) and pass rush win rate (43%, 31st) increased marginally.<\/p>\n

According to ESPN Research, despite blitzing on 28% of opponent dropbacks (12th highest in the NFL), the Bears still could not get to the quarterback. Of the Bears\u2019 35 sacks — only six teams had fewer — 13 came when sending the blitz (11th highest percentage in the NFL).<\/p>\n

Defensive end Montez Sweat<\/a> put together his second-best season as a pro and finished with a team-high 10 sacks. Sweat led the Bears with 44 pressures while the next closest defender was defensive tackle Gervon Dexter Sr.<\/a>, who had 17. That difference of 27 was the fourth-largest between a team\u2019s top two pressure generators last season.<\/p>\n

Not long after the Bears used their first round draft pick to select Oregon safety Dillon Thieneman<\/a> 25th overall, general manager Ryan Poles intimated that improving the secondary would mitigate the issues Chicago faces up front.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously the D-line helps the back end more often than not,\u201d Poles said. \u201cBut in this situation, where we have good corners, good safeties, we can be in a position where maybe we can have the quarterback hold the ball a little longer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aside from adding depth on the interior of the D-line with Neville Gallimore<\/a>, Kentavius Street<\/a> and James Lynch<\/a> in free agency, the group the Bears currently have is who they\u2019re expected to field this fall. When asked about the possibility of reuniting with free agent defensive end Cam Jordan, who he coached in New Orleans, Allen didn\u2019t seem optimistic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we feel pretty good about where we\u2019re at and what we have and yet, you never know what opportunities might present themselves down the road,\u201d Allen said.<\/p>\n

Sweat was by far the most effective pass rusher on the Bears, and it wasn\u2019t close. And he is once again who Chicago will need to rely on while the team figures out who will be his complement at defensive end.<\/p>\n

Among those candidates is Dayo Odeyingbo<\/a>, who was limited to eight games with an Achilles rupture after signing a three-year, $48 million contract in March 2025. Odeyingbo will \u201cdefinitely be in the mix\u201d at defensive end when the team gets to training camp, according to Allen, after totaling eight pressures and one sack last season.<\/p>\n

The Bears also believe Austin Booker<\/a> (4.5 sacks) and Shemar Turner<\/a> will provide competition at defensive end. Booker began the 2025 season on injured reserve and showed improvement towards the end of the season after 10 games. Turner, who mostly played on the interior of the D-line at Texas A&M before the Bears drafted him in the second round, was placed on injured reserve after appearing in five games. Chicago believes Turner can play multiple spots along the defensive line, including at edge.<\/p>\n

At the conclusion of the draft, both Johnson and Poles were confident that they had added the right mix of players to create competition at every spot. The Bears fell short of doing that with their defensive line and will bank heavily on their ability to coach better to generate better results from effectively the same pool of talent that they fielded in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAKE FOREST, Ill. — Throughout the 2026 offseason, the Chicago Bears said they would prioritize fixing the team\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":688660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,134662,514,82],"class_list":["post-688659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chicago-bears-sports-football-team-team-statscom-326","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}