Getty Bears head coach Matt Eberflus might get another pass rusher before the training camp begins.
The Chicago Bears have shored up the bottom-roster competition for their defensive end spots with a pair of undrafted rookie signings in the aftermath of the 2023 NFL draft, but the fervor for them to add a starter-quality veteran to the room could reach a fever pitch before the start of training camp in July.
Good thing the market hasn’t quite dried up just yet for the Bears.
Bleacher Report’s Jack Rill recently proposed a list of veteran free agents he believes could interest the Bears in the coming months and included a fan-favorite pass-rushing target — former Indianapolis Colts and Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Yannick Ngakoue — among his best three fits for the Bears defense in 2023.
Ngakoue nearly delivered back-to-back seasons with double-digit sacks in 2022, falling a half-sack short with 9.5 sacks over 15 games for the Colts after putting up 10 sacks for the Raiders in 2021. Over his seven seasons, the 28-year-old pass rusher has never finished with fewer than eight sacks, which would be valuable to a Bears defense that saw none of its defensive linemen produce more than three sacks last season.
“Maybe Chicago only needs to sign [Frank] Clark or Ngakoue, but it’s important for a team to keep its options open,” Rill wrote. “And the Bears need as much pass-rushing help as they can get, especially because it’s important to have depth on the edges.”
Ngakoue most recently played on a two-year, $26 million contract, and the Bears’ ideal financial situation — about $30 million in cap space, once all draft picks are signed — would allow them to offer him similar money if they wanted to secure his services.
Bears’ Defensive End Room Contains a Lot of Risk
The reason why everyone and their mother — including me — feels like the Bears are going to add another is the volatile state of their current defensive end room, where a mixture of hit-or-miss veterans and green youngsters are going to be asked to improve the NFL’s worst pass-rushing unit that finished with a league-low 20 sacks last year.
The Bears welcome back both of their top starters from last season in Trevis Gipson and Dominique Robinson and added both DeMarcus Walker and Rasheem Green in free agency to add more veteran experience to the room. The former is coming off a seven-sack breakout with the Tennessee Titans in 2022, while the latter posted a better run-stop percentage (6.6%, per Pro Football Focus) than most of the league’s edge rushers. On paper, both players should raise the floor of the Bears’ pass-rushing unit and offer, at the very least, a deeper set of options for their rotation next season.
At the same time, not a single one of the Bears’ pass rushers has experienced the type of consistent success that Ngakoue has. Gipson recorded a career-high seven sacks in a 2021 campaign that had the makings of a breakout for him, but he slumped to just three sacks in 2022 and got worse as a run defender. Meanwhile, Robinson tallied 1.5 sacks in the season opener, but he wasn’t able to get another one in his remaining 16 games.
Similar skepticism can be applied to Walker and Green, too. Walker looked like a new man for the Titans last year, but he is just two years removed from his forgettable stint with the Houston Texans in 2021 when he did less (two sacks) with more (458 snaps). And while Green has tallied 13 sacks over his past two seasons, there have been blunders — 14 missed tackles — along the way that should give the Bears pause.
Now, the Bears’ confidence in these boom-or-bust players could pay off nicely. If Robinson grows into a more complete pass rusher during his first full NFL offseason or any one of Gipson, Walker or Green gets more production as a result of an improved interior pass rusher, nobody will be batting an eye. But considering the alternative could be another year with a less-than-adequate pass rush, it could be worth the risk for them to invest some of their remaining cap space into Ngakoue or another veteran.
Will D’Anthony Jones or Jalen Harris Make Roster?
The Bears have abstained from adding another veteran pass rusher in the immediate weeks following the 2023 draft, but they have added a pair of undrafted rookies — Arizona’s Jalen Harris and Houston’s D’Anthony Jones — who could potentially contend for depth roles on their 53-man roster depending on who else they add.
Harris was among the Bears’ initial batch of UDFA signings and comes to Chicago with more experience than the average rookie after spending six years with the Wildcats. The 6-foot-4, 257-pound end put up career-high numbers in both total tackles (51) and tackles for loss (seven) during his fourth and final season as a full-time starter in 2022 and tested well in most athletic metrics, earning an impressive relative athletic score of 8.66 out of 10. Harris also has familial ties to the Bears that make him easy to root for, as his father, Sean, played six seasons for the Bears as a linebacker from 1995 to 2000.
The Bears’ other rookie edge rusher is Jones, who earned a spot on their 90-man roster after a successful tryout with the team during last weekend’s two-day rookie minicamp. He is a little shorter (six foot) and a little heavier (276) than Harris, but he was more productive as a pass rusher in college, finishing the 2022 season with eight sacks, 13.5 tackles for loss and five forced fumbles for the Cougars. Pro Football Focus also graded him better (93.1) than all but six defenders in the FBS last year, including every edge rusher who played at least 92 pass-rushing snaps on the season.
The Bears not drafting another edge rusher may have disappointed some expectations, but Harris and Jones are plenty talented and could each become surprise makes for the 53-man roster if they play their cards right in training camp and the preseason.