Defensive end Montez Sweat has been a good player. But when the Bears debut their newest addition Sunday against the Saints, they need him to be great.
Big picture, they’re banking on Sweat to change everything.
He arrived Wednesday from the Commanders, practiced twice, and coach Matt Eberflus said he will play against the Saints.
The Bears have had the weakest pass rush in the NFL the last two seasons, and it has crippled them. The priority list for any general manager building a roster is, first, to find a quarterback and, second, to find someone who wrecks everyone else’s.
The delays in Ryan Poles solving those problems have been exhausting, and shortfalls in those two aspects are the biggest reasons the Bears are 5-20 the last two seasons.
At quarterback, he has gone the reasonable route of trying to develop Justin Fields. And there should be resolution on that by the end of this season: Either Fields proves he’s the guy or Poles uses a very high draft pick, possibly No. 1, to bring in the next candidate.
Poles has wanted to supercharge the pass rush, too, but has said the opportunities simply haven’t lined up. That’s ironic, of course, because he inherited potential Hall of Famer Khalil Mack when he took the job, though the more prudent path for a rebuilding team was to escape that massive contract and stockpile draft picks.
Elite pass rushers usually aren’t available in free agency, a reality that factored into Poles trading a second-round pick — currently slotted at No. 35 overall — to the Commanders for Sweat.
It’s also hard to get them in the draft without a really high pick. The Bears didn’t have a first-round selection in Poles’ first year, and this year he traded down from No. 1 to No. 9 because he preferred the extra 2024 first-round pick, extra ’25 second-rounder and wide receiver DJ Moore that he got in return from the Panthers.
That took the Bears out of reach of Alabama’s Will Anderson (No. 3 overall) and Texas Tech’s Tyree Wilson (No. 7), and perhaps Poles will feel differently about his decision once it’s clear how good those two are.
From Poles’ perspective, he addressed the problems he could when the opportunities matched the Bears’ resources. He spent on right guard Nate Davis and linebacker Tremaine Edmunds in free agency, filling needs, and used his first- and second-round draft picks at right tackle, defensive tackle and in the secondary — again, all glaring needs.
But the progress he’s made has been undercut by the absence of a pass rush. The secondary, for example, is loaded with talent and arguably is the strongest unit on the team. But the Bears’ corners and safeties have to hold their coverage longer than most because the team pressures opposing quarterbacks just 16.7% of the time, which is second-to-last.
That’s where they need Sweat to have a ripple effect.
Over the last season and a half, the entirety of the Poles-Eberflus era, the Bears are last in the league with 30 sacks and 141 pressures in 25 games. Not surprisingly, they have given up the second-highest completion percentage (68.1) and passer rating (97.1) in the NFL over that span, and from there it’s predictable that they’ve allowed a league-worst 27.2 points per game.
The Bears’ need for someone like Sweat is urgent — they had no sacks against the Chargers last week, a league-high third time that’s happened this season — but it’s also long term. The future of their defensive line should be rookie tackles Gervon Dexter and Zacch Pickens in the middle with Sweat and a high draft pick on the outside.
That’s why a contract extension for Sweat is near-certain; it’d be nonsensical for the 2-6 Bears to give up such a high pick for merely a rental. So it’s a huge investment, and Poles gets his first peek at the return on it Sunday.
