Bear Digest

The AFC Championship Game Message for Bears on Adding a Pass Rusher

The first few plays of the Patriots-Broncos game sent a clear message about what the Bears need to be a more effective defense and team.
Gene Chamberlain|
The Broncos and Patriots are proof teams don't need to spend wildly in the marketplace to have an effective pass rush.
The Broncos and Patriots are proof teams don't need to spend wildly in the marketplace to have an effective pass rush. | Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

There are messages or lesson in all NFL games applicable to the Bears' current status an the conference championship game are no different.

The AFC Championship Game between New England and Denver had a start entirely relevant to this Bears offseason. In fact, it took one possession for each team to get this message across.

The Broncos tried to run the ball two downs, got a yard, had to throw on  third-and-long and the pass rush nearly got Jarrett Stidham while forcing his incompletion.

New England was held to 6 yards on two running plays and on third-and-4 the rush came on heavy and forced an incompletion by Drake Maye that should have been a pick-6 but was dropped.

There it was, the lesson for the Bears heading off into the offseason in an  attempt to improve their defense. They don't need to go out after a big-name edge rusher and sacrifice the future of the team. They need a better ability to stop the run. They need defensive tackle help drastically and if they go that way it would be a benefit to have one who also helps cave in the pocket.

Whether they're getting this from the draft or free agency doesn't  matter, but usually drafting a defensive tackle doesn't produce dividends for two or three years.

Simple message to Bears on defense

Stop the run, force the pass and predictable situations become easy pickings for edge rushers, even for those who are not necessarily the most dynamic or household names.

This is especially true with New England. The Patriots defense was being feted for its dominance leading up to the game, and all during it by CBS's broadcast crew. The Patriots had one less sack on the season (34) than the Bears did. They had no one with more sacks than Harold Landry's total of 8 1/2.

For a while, Denver challenged the Bears' NFL sack  record of 72 by the 1984 team in 16 games, but wound up with 68 for 17 games. Denver didn't go out and signs someone else's sack-happy defensive end. They drafted Nick Bonitto four years ago and not even in the first round. He had 14 sacks this year, 13 1/2 in Sean Payton's first season with the team and before that had eight in his second year and only 1 1/2 as a rookie. The 1 1/2 for a rookie sounds about right.

They drafted Jonathon Cooper and developed him. After two and 2 1/2 sacks, he has had 8 1/2, 10 and eight sacks the last three seasons. They did bring in a few outside pass rushers who never had put up big totals. They got 7 1/2 sacks this year from John Franklin-Myers after trading for him, and he never had more than six sacks anywhere else. They got seven sacks from Zach Allen, the free agent acquired three years ago from the Cardinals who never had more than 5 1/2 sacks until the last two years.

The Patriots were sixth against  the run, the Broncos second. Want to make your pass rush better? Stop the run, draft pass rushers, develop them and above all else, don't waste your limited salary cap resources on someone's $30 million-a-year edge. The Bears were 27th stopping the run. Of course they couldn't rush the passer when they're too worried about preventing 5-yard runs.

Don't panic

Poles realizes all of this and even commented along those lines when touching on the subject of going into the open market for pass rush help. The Bears pass rush might even have an answer as a complement to Montez Sweat already in Austin Booker, who was a real force over the final six games.

"You see it across the league all the time," Poles said. "You panic and you want to do crazy things that everybody else wants you to do. It leads you to some situations you can't get out of.

"So we want to stay flexible, we want to stay open-minded, we want to stay committed  to building this team the right way because I think that's the best way to sustain success. We're always going to be opportunistic. We're going to go through opportunities that pop up and talk through them. Is this best for us short-term? Is it best for us long-term? And then we move from there."

Denver and New England on defense show what development can  do, and especially what stopping the run does to help your pass rush.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.