Shaq Barrett is Good Reason Not to Ditch Leonard Floyd

After the Bears spent two first-round draft picks and a big percentage of their salary cap on Khalil Mack, they've come to the realization their prize pass rusher can't do it by himself.

Mack's decline in sacks by 32% from 2018 with only 8 1/2 sacks doesn't necessarily indicate a hidden injury or drop in effort.

"Premier defensive player, I think you can definitely tell the attention that our opponents focus on him. That's a big part of it," general manager Ryan Pace said.

The double and triple teams made it possible to stymie Mack and without the inside push from injured Akiem Hicks it diminished the pass rush overall.

"Khalil, he wants more production," Pace said. "We know that it's there. There's so many things that he does I think that go a little unnoticed, the way he plays the run, the attention that opponents have to put upon him.

"Again, I think when you look at our whole team, we all want to play better. Khalil wants to play better. He knows he can play better. Trust me, we're very fortunate to have Khalil Mack on our team."

No one who saw his impact in 2018 would ever doubt this. Yet, the reason Mack was so effective initially in Chicago was the Bears already had a respectable rush in place. Hicks inside and Leonard Floyd seemed to be ascending in terms of production at time time. They didn't have either last year and left Mack on an island.

Coaches and Pace try to paint a rosy picture of Floyd's abilities and production, but the bottom line is he has to provide pressure off the other side to be the counter and keep teams from being too focused on Mack.

Hicks' health will return, but there's no guarantee Floyd ever gets to a level where the Bears pictured him. Then again, do they just quit on him and look around in the risky free agent market rather than pay him the $13 million he's due this year?

There's an example this season of a player not unlike Floyd who provides a lesson for the situation they're facing with their 2016 first-round drat pick.

Last year the Denver Broncos gave up on Shaq Barrett. In five years he had 14. He had an injury in 2018 and missed several games. The Broncos had a new coaching staff coming in and Vic Fangio had other ideas for pass rushers.

Not many other teams thought much of Barrett either. He had to sign a one-year deal with $3 million guaranteed and $5 million total with Tampa Bay.

And in 2019 he led the NFL with 19 1/2 sacks.

So while many teams are out looking for a big-dollar pass rusher like Jadeveon Clowney or Barrett now after he proved himself, the smart personnel people will study the edge rushers who have talent but fell through the cracks the way Barrett did.

If the Bears cut Floyd for cap purposes, it's very possible he'd wind up even more motivated, would fit in better somewhere else and would turn into a quarterback's worst nightmare.

New England had outside linebacker Jamie Collins initially and he nver amounted to much as a pass rusher. He wound up in Cleveland and the Patriots eventually brought him back. Last year Collins came up with a career-high seven sacks and matched a career-high with 10 quarterback hits at age 30. Now he's a free agent and Spotrac.com sets his market value at $8.8 million average per year.

The Jets' Jordan Jenkins is an edge rusher who is a free agent this year but struggled when he came into the league the same year as Floyd. After two years, he suddenly produced seven sacks and then eight in 2019 and now has two more than Floyd for his career, with free agency and a possible big cash day coming.

There are players who are free agents who could be on the decline, like Robert Quinn with Dallas or Jason Pierre-Paul with Tampa Bay. Then the Falcons and Vic Beasley on Monday parted ways and it's never good for a player when you're not as productive as in the past and your team says they're going to look elsewhere. It's sort of what happened to Barrett.

These are the type of examples that make it apparent the best way to solve Floyd's situation is try to work out an extension in which he's not eating $13 million of this year's camp, and the salary cap eats more of the money in the future.

Or they could just go out and study the free agent market closely and try to predict who the next Barrett will be, while hoping it's not Floyd.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven