Bear Digest

Why Signing Veteran Edge Rusher Best Suits Bears This Season

A short-term fix is the best answer for the Bears to balance out their edge rush at this point and part of the reason is what's ahead.

Gene Chamberlain

Bringing back Yannick Ngakoue one more year or signing another veteran for the short term looks like a viable Bears edge answer considering next year's draft class.
Bringing back Yannick Ngakoue one more year or signing another veteran for the short term looks like a viable Bears edge answer considering next year's draft class. / Jamie Sabau-USA TODAY Sports
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The last big step for the Bears before training camp has looked like it needs to be an edge or defensive line addition since the draft ended.

It's why the available names of Yannick Ngakoue, Calais Campbell, Emmanuel Ogbah and even Carl Lawson keep getting thrown around in connection with the Bears. Expecting one of their two young fifth-rounders—Dominique Robinson and Austin Booker—to suddenly be an answer in the rush rotation could be a ride through fantasyland considering how often Day 3 pass rushers become immediate contributors.

A one-year edge rush fix of Ngakoue, Campbell or any of the others can be a viable route for this team and this is obvious from a pair of Matt Vederame articles for Sports Illustrated.

The first identifies the big roster decision yet to be made by every NFL team and Verderame concludes edge rusher and offensive line are the spots for the Bears. Offensive line looks like it's covered two times over at this point, but no one would complain about a defensive tackle option should Gervon Dexter not take a step forward. 

"GM Ryan Poles should be targeting upcoming free agents on the offensive line and at edge rusher to round out the team," Verderame wrote.

Bears defensive coordinator Eric Washington called fundamentals more Dexter's goal after he has improved his body to be leaner and stronger in the offseason.

“Just watching the footwork, some of those small but very, very important details with him," Washington said Thursday. "Watching his stance, watching his pad level. He's a big, tall guy, so it's in his best interest to play with great pad level. Just watching those things, watching him have to adjust what he’s doing as the parts are moving and receive communication.

"And I’m going to tell you the biggest thing is just how assertive he is. You can tell there's a growing confidence. He’s assertive. He believes that he belongs in the lineup and he believes that he can be a major factor."

Still, those are intangibles at this point and a backup plan might be necessary should neither Dexter nor Zacch Pickens make the next step up.

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The edge is the greater concern, by far, considering the lack of credentials as pass rushers by anyone other than Montez Sweat.

The reason one of the short-term answers could work is the Bears have a good enough cap situation to add one with $12.3 million in effective cap space according to Overthecap.com. But also because the long-term answer might exist a year from now.

https://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space

It's Verderame who wrote an article for SI about the top 25 prospects for the 2025 NFL Draft. And in it, nine of the top 25 players are defensive linemen. It should be raining defensive line help next spring, and a team with three picks in the first two rounds should have no problem coming out of it with long-term impact players, or at least one pass rusher.

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Georgia defensive tackle Mykel Williams, Tennessee edge James Pearce Jr., Michigan defensive tackle Mason Graham, Kentucky nose Deone Walker, Penn State edge Abdul Carter, Texas A&M edge Nic Scourton, Florida State edge Patrick Payton and Ohio State edges Jack Sawyer and J.T. Tuimoloau are players to add to your watch list for the coming college season if you're a Bears fan, according to Verderame's assessment of the 2025 draft class.

The Bears can do nothing about a long-term answer now beyond hope one of their two young rushers suddenly develops. A patchwork solution until the future gets addressed in the future is their best route.

BearDigest@BearsOnMaven

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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.