The familiar free agent who could solve one of Ryan Poles' headaches
There are 31 other NFL teams besides the Bears and 28 of them had a pass rusher who had more sacks than anyone who wears the Chicago uniform.
In fact, many of them had two players with more sacks than anyone on the Bears.
The Bears' pass rush looked formidable in flashes but never achieved desired consistency, while edge rusher Montez Sweat failed to hit the kind of numbers he had last year, before signing a four-year $98 million contract extension.
"For Montez we had a good conversation," GM Ryan Poles said after the season ended. "I know he’s disappointed in himself and wants to continue to get better. I know, and he knows, he’s capable of much more.
"As we continue to build the defensive line adding more talent will help. When we looked at some of the chip numbers and the double teams, he did get a fair share of those too. The way you defeat that is to continue to add talent to create more one-on-one matchups.”
So there it is, Poles finally has admitted the Bears need to go out and find another edge rusher to complement Sweat.
Edge problems
DeMarcus Walker tried for a few years and isn't that level or type of pass rusher off the edge. The Bears dabbled at improvement with fifth-round talent like Austin Booker and Dominique Robinson or by trading away a sixth-round pick for the likes of Darrell Taylor.
They never really get serious about the issue. It's as if Poles doesn't want to be bothered by the pass rush problem or he doesn't understand how to build a defensive line.
There are always hired guns in the edge rush group during free agency. Many of the better ones get protected but older, effective players can be problems for quarterbacks as well. This is especially true in a rotation the way the Bears try to use it to keep players fresh.
For this reason, Poles needs to take a long look at one player in particular. He needs to consider bringing Khalil Mack back to Chicago.
Bring back Mack
It could be a case where Mack doesn't want to return. He's back on the west coast and might want to finish his career there.
At age 34 there will be concern he's too old now but the season before last he had a career-high 17 sacks. Plenty of older edge rushers flourish in the league. Bruce Smith had 60 of his sacks at the age of 34 or later.
With Mack it all comes down to keeping him healthy and away from double teams just as it did in Chicago. They couldn't keep him free of double teams and never provided him with sufficient help off the other edge. They had Robert Quinn, he had only two sacks in his first Bears season and then Mack suffered a season-ending injury while Quinn came through with a career-high sack total.
With the Chargers, Mack has been at his best when he had help, as well. But Joey Bosa has battled various injuries for three years.
Normally bringing players back fails to produce the storybook ending desired. You can't go home again, as they say.
In Mack's case, he could and he price at his age might be much easier for Poles to stomach than bringing in a player hitting free agency for the first time.
According to Spotrac.com's market value, Mack should bring in $6.8 million in a contract.
The Bears can easily afford this or something within range of it, but it's likely to take a lot more. They wasted more than that much on dead cap money by dumping Eddie Jackson and Cody Whitehair last year and bringing in Taylor and Jake Martin. They might as well focus their cap space on players capable of producing.
With Mack back, the Bears could then afford to draft a higher edge rusher who would be the third in the rotation and can develop.
They are not situated in the first round of the draft in a place where they can go after the two top defensive linemen, Mason Graham or Abdul Carter.
Quit messing around
The Bears have toyed around with this notion of finding help to remove pressure from Sweat for over a year and before that had chances to add edge rushers without doing it. They seemed to have the right idea in pursuing Matt Judon for a trade but failed to pull it off. They kept looking at sub-bargain basement means to do it, like Martin, Daniel Hardy or Taco Charlton.
They tried selling people on Matt Eberflus' idea of middle rushers being important but that's what you say when you don't have two edge rushers.
They have the means to actually achieve a plan to have two edges with $54.5 million in effective cap space. The only thing the defense lacks is a deep pass rush group on the edge.
The big problem might be making the pitch that would get Mack sold on a return to play for a team where he was greatly valued and appreciated.
If not Mack, then Judon, Haason Reddick, Josh Sweat, Chase Young and any number of others will be in free agency like there are every year.
It's time for Poles to actually behave like the edge needed to balance out the rush is out there and available. Mack would be the best avenue.
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