How Journeyman Barkevious Mingo Can Elevate the Bears

As a special teams player with speed or an edge linebacker, Barkevious Mingo is a player familiar with several Bears coaches and his new roles
How Journeyman Barkevious Mingo Can Elevate the Bears
How Journeyman Barkevious Mingo Can Elevate the Bears /

A solution to lost experience and depth at linebacker for the Bears can be one player who epitomizes the term journeyman.

When the Bears signed Barkevious Mingo in free agency it might have looked insignificant to some but Bears outside linebackers coach Ted Monachino and special teams coordinator Chris Tabor knew exactly what they were getting based on their experience coaching him.

"This was a player that I was fortunate enough to evaluate," Monachino said. "I was in the league when he came out."

Monachino served as Baltimore Ravens outside linebackers coach then, but wouldn't get to coach Mingo until 2017 while serving under Colts coach Chuck Pagano.

"Barkevious is that calm, steady voice of reason that every defense needs," Monachino said. "He is extremely talented, has dominant traits in certain areas. Other areas, he's a fine football player. But in the areas he does well, he does them very well."

The Bears are Mingo's sixth team in six seasons after playing his first three with Cleveland. He's actually been traded twice, which is a rarity in the NFL these days but reflects the value teams find in him as a reserve and special teams player. The last time he was tossed in with a third-round pick when the Seahawks acquired Jadeveon Clowney from the Texans.

"I don't think this is a guy that you say, 'oh, we're drafting or we're signing the next pass rusher,' " Monachino said. "I think this is a guy that you say this guy adds an awful lot to our team and to especially our unit defensively as a football player."

Mingo has started as many as 14 games in a season, two years ago in a 4-3 defense with Seattle as an outside linebacker. In Indianapolis he played 47% of the defensive snaps while starting just six games. He was a true spot player on the edge then, which is how the Bears will use him on defense.

At 6-foot-5, 235 pounds, he's a much different player than Aaron Lynch, who played an outside backup spot in the past. Mingo would be more like Sam Acho was for the Bears or Leonard Floyd, as an edge who could also drop into pass coverage. Pagano's Colts defense squeezed two sacks and nine quarterback hits from him in a part-time role.

As a rookie, he had five sacks but never got close to this total again.

"I was in Cleveland when we drafted him," Tabor said. "He was a four-phase, really good special teams player for us. And I know he's been a journeyman around the league."

Mingo has been on the field for between 63% and 85% of his teams' special teams plays over the last five seasons. He tied for 13th in the league in special teams tackles with 12 in Seattle in 2018, when he was also a starter.

"I mean, he can run; the guy can run," Tabor said. "And he made a lot of plays for me. And if he didn't make the tackle, he was actually one of the lead reasons why somebody else made the tackle. So very active player."

As a rookie coming into the league in 2013, Mingo actually ran a faster 40 time (4.58) than Floyd (4.6) and was .07 faster than Khalil Mack.

In a year when many younger players could find difficulty adapting because they lacked offseason work with their teams due to COVID-19, Mingo might be the ideal player to have for depth purposes.

"And the beauty of Barkevious is he's a guy that doesn't require a ton of reps to be able to play full speed and to step in at any point in any game and not simply get you through the game but to go in and play winning football in a lot of different situations," Monachino said.

It's an ideal trait to have for a journeyman.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven


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