Bear Digest

The Bears Draft Need That Just Doesn't Seem to Go Away

Analysis: With a drastic need for offensive line help the Bears are still going to need to look at the defensive line again in the offseason after failures in key areas.

Gene Chamberlain

Gervon Dexter and DeMarcus Walker react after a big play earlier this season. The defensive front will need fixing in the offseason again for the Bears.
Gervon Dexter and DeMarcus Walker react after a big play earlier this season. The defensive front will need fixing in the offseason again for the Bears. / Mike Dinovo-Imagn Images
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A team with so many issues at the line of scrimmage on one side of the football can hardly tolerate problems in the same area on the other side of the ball.

Yet, two years after addressing the defensive line in the draft and a year after doing it through trade and free agency, the Bears will no doubt find themselves looking for offseason help along the defensive front again.

It's not that defensive tackle Gervon Dexter has failed. To the contrary, defensive coordinator Eric Washington has plenty of good things to say about Dexter.

"Just looking back, the one thing that I would say is we lived in the world of the extremes way too often."

- Defensive coordinator Eric Washington

"His rush production has really picked up and he's been impactful as a rusher and he's also been able to finish against the quarterback," Washington said. "I think that was a targeted area for him and there's a lot more to gain as he continues to work and to get better and to get stronger.

"All of the things that you want to see in terms of his growth.”

In terms of strength, Washington means in run defense.  They are tied for 19th in sacks with 37, which isn’t ideal but is better than last year. Dexter has been among their sack leaders all year. It’s against the run where they’ve fallen off most. They went from first last year to 27th.

Dexter has only four tackles for loss as the 3-technique. It's an unacceptable number for this scheme Matt Eberflus brought to the Bears defense.

There's no telling if they'll continue playing this or something similar until they hire a head coach but they have 39 tackles for loss from their defensive linemen, or 54.9%

When Eberflus had his scheme working at peak efficiency with the Colts, 62% of tackles for loss came from defensive linemen.

Maybe this issue would have all been solved if they had drafted Jalen Carter in 2023 but they opted for right tackle Darnell Wright instead. As a result, even with their need on the offensive line they would have to give very real consideration to drafting Michigan defensive lineman Mason Graham if he fell to them the way Carter did.

The Bears have had very little production from Zacch Pickens, who was drafted a round after Dexter in the same year and was inactive last week. They're not asking a lot from him.

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"Just be a difference maker and just attain the type of production that we expect from a gap-aligned defensive tackle," Washington said. "We need production, we need a certain amount of impact, a certain amount of factored-in production. Zaach will continue to grow, and we'll get that from him."

It often takes several years for defensive tackles to surface as playmakers. They had one with Andrew Billings and lost him to a pectoral injury.

They could use another edge rusher, as well. Defensive line help is always important. They'd like to keep premiere players like Montez Sweat fresh and haven't been able to do it.

More than anything else, they need the defense overall and especially their front to play consistent football. For that reason, defensive line will still be an offseason need going forward even as they try to improve on the offensive line.

Washington saw this lack of consistency as the biggest problem they've faced and all he needs to do is point at their last game when they allowed six points after they'd given up 102 in the previous three games.

"I will say this, in this business you have to be consistent," he said. "You have to be consistent.

"Just looking back, the one thing that I would say is we lived in the world of the extremes way too often. There were times where it was extremely good and then there were times where it worked on the other end. You have to stay out of that business when you're trying to compete and you're trying to give yourself the best chance to help your football team win week-in and week-out."

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher 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.