A new pass rush is not one of the many things the Chicago Bears have offered their supporters to cheer about during the summer.
With 20 total sacks in 2022, Chicago had the weakest pass-rushing defense in the NFL. Last year, the Bears improved that total to 30 sacks, but they were still 31st out of 32 teams in this important statistical category.
Thus, on Monday, August 5, Joe Tansey of Bleacher Report named former Bear and Pro Bowler Yannick Ngakoue as one of three free agents Chicago “must target” in the roughly one month leading up to the start of the regular season.
In the preseason, Tansey stated, “They will try to give Austin Booker as much time as possible to impress. However, if the fifth-round pick is not ready, the Bears could look to some veteran pass-rushing help to play opposite [Montez] Sweat.” Last season, while wearing a Chicago uniform, Ngakoue recorded [6] tackles for loss and [4] sacks. In 2024, we would welcome that same level of productivity.
In 2023, Yannick Ngakoue had his worst year as a Bears player.
August 4 of last year saw Ngakoue sign a one-year, $10.5 million contract with the Bears. This was a much later signing than it was the previous time, and he would sign even later this time should a deal materialize.
But the money would probably be different. A year older, Ngakoue, 29, recently concluded the worst campaign of his eight-year career. During 13 games, he only managed 4 sacks. In each of the previous seven seasons, Ngakoue recorded eight sacks or more.
His late-season fractured ankle, which kept him out of four games, contributed to part of last year’s result. But Ngakoue shared a video of himself performing agility drills on social media in May, along with the message, “What ankle?”
It would seem that Ngakoue is back to full health, but he will lose value because of an injury and a poor season in which he did the one thing he always did well: pressure the quarterback. Furthermore, Chicago has the most negotiation leverage despite its weakness at the position because the defensive end’s availability suggests that his demands regarding price and/or length of contract have not been satisfied in any of the league’s other 31 cities.
Bears Austin Booker Is Not Probably Ready for the Rookie Season Role of Yannick Ngakoue
Sweat’s acquisition from the Washington Commanders prior to the 2023 trade deadline was the primary factor in Chicago’s increase in sack total from 20 to 30 in the previous season.
Though it was a wise decision, the Bears lost out on a second-round pick in this year’s draft when Sweat finished with six sacks for Chicago in just nine games, for a total of thirteen sacks, and was selected to his first Pro Bowl.
However, Booker, a fifth-round rookie out of Kansas, may end up playing the majority of the time if the team doesn’t sign another pure pass rusher like Ngakoue in free agency. Despite recording eight sacks and twelve tackles for loss in his final year of college, Booker fell as much as he did for a reason. This was mostly due to the fact that most assessors still characterize his skill set as unpolished and raw.
The Scouting Department of Bleacher Report stated in April that Booker will likely just be a situational pass rusher for a year or two, so whichever team chooses him will need to be patient with him.
Booker is listed as a third-string defensive end on the team’s second unofficial preseason depth chart, which was made public on Monday in advance of the team’s August 10 game against the Buffalo Bills. It might be asking too much of a gifted rookie project if you want him to fill even a starting role similar to what Ngakoue did last season.
With $12.2 million in salary cap room available to the Bears, it would be easiest and safest to use around half of that to sign Ngakoue for a year, relieving some of the strain on Booker in his first NFL season.
