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The One Name Standing Out if Bears Want a Closer at Edge Rusher

Finding an edge rusher for the rotation who can complement Montez Sweat and Austin Booker requires a specific type and someone at the right price for Chicago.
Gene Chamberlain|
Buffalo Bills defensive end Joey Bosa sacks Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
Buffalo Bills defensive end Joey Bosa sacks Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. | Tina MacIntyre-Yee/Democrat and Chronicle / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

One of the greatest Bears defensive problems is sitting out there waiting to be solved with the signing of a free agent.

The obvious situation here is someone to rush the passer, but it’s more complex than this. When a team has only 35 sacks like the Bears did last year, that number stands out but there is more to it.

What the Bears are really in need of is production from a pass rusher, preferably off the edge but they’ll take it from anywhere at this point. In fact, defensive tackle would do just fine.

However, more important is someone good enough to get to the passer when it counts the most. Applying pressure and recording sacks late in blowout wins or even blowout losses doesn’t matter much. It needs to be at money time.

Getting sacks in blowouts brings to mind the sack Lamarr Houston had for them in 2014 against the Patriots in the fourth quarter. He celebrated this great achievement and tore an ACL in the process.

"I probably shouldn’t have celebrated like that, but it happens,” Houston said at the time.

It wasn’t a sack of Tom Brady. It was backup Jimmy Garappolo. And it came with 3 ½ minutes remaining in a game the Bears lost 51-23. Whooo hooo!

The Bears need money rushers to complement Montez Sweat, who had four of his 10 sacks last year in the fourth quarter but one in a game with a huge lead. Sweat is a pass rusher in the crunch or otherwise. Austin Booker showed promise at this, but his sample size was small with 2 ½ fourth-quarter sacks of his 4 ½ on the year. He didn’t get to play in the first eight games due to injury.

The Bears had only one other fourth-quarter sack by a defensive lineman still with the team last year. That was by Grady Jarrett and it also was in a fourth-quarter blowout win over Cleveland.

They had a couple other fourth-quarter sacks, one by C.J. Gardner-Johnson and one by Andrew Billings. Neither are with the team this season and Gardner-Johnson was a defensive back who blitzed.

Joey Bosa is the available money edge still unsigned

There is one edge rusher available still in free agency who put up outstanding crunch time numbers, according to Pro Football Focus. He didn’t have great sack figures overall, but was there causing QBs problems when it counted most.

It’s Joey Bosa. In an article for PFF about the 10 best closers in the NFL, Daire Carragher had Bosa graded up in the top 10 players to finish games at any position, along with two Bears. One was Colston Loveland and the other was running back D’Andre Swift.

Except, Bosa was graded the No. 1 closer of all players in the NFL last year at any position.

He had a 91.8 PFF grade in fourth quarters or overtime last year, highest for any player at any position.  It was only 59.5 in the first three quarters. How many NFL games are decided in the first three quarters these days? It doesn’t seem to happen often.

“Of Bosa’s 54 total pressures in 2025, 23 came during fourth quarters or overtime, along with three of his five sacks,” Carragher wrote. “His pressure rate jumped dramatically from 11.2% through the first three quarters to 22.6% once the fourth quarter began.  

“Only Aidan Hutchinson generated pressure at a higher rate in those situations.”

Too often last year the Bears’ injury-depleted secondary got hung out to dry by their own defensive front’s inability to pressure passers in crucial situations. Their league-high interception total of 33 was a remarkable tribute to defensive backs coach Al Harris and to defensive coordinator Dennis Allen for dialing up blitz pressure at the right time.

Other than Sweat and later in the year Booker, they failed to get the heat from their defensive front late in games when necessary and often had to gamble with extra rush men at the expense of their coverage.

Signing a player like Bosa, with the ability to take it up a notch at crunch time, would be exactly what they need for an edge rush rotation.

To be sure, there are players available to rush the passer still like Jadeveon Clowney, Derek Barnett, Cameron Jordan and Von Miller.  Finding the right one to add for the Bears will be a matter of fit, but it’s never a bad fit to add pass rushers who get it done in the fourth quarter.

Just like with any of the top pass rushers available, signing Bosa would be a matter of common sense and cents for the Bears. Bosa took quite a drop in pay rate last year when he went from Chargers to the Bills and his cap hit was $5.35 million. It had been $26.1 million the previous season.

The Bears are at $6.6 million in effective available cap space, or the amount under their cap not spoken for with future obligations.

Bosa playing in fourth quarters with the ferocity he showed last year for the Bills would be exactly the type of player they could use to work in with Sweat and Booker in a rotation to help protect leads, but it’s hardly a desperate situation with a large number of potential contributors still available as free agents and training camp still a couple of months away.

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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.

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