When the Bears traded a second-round pick for defensive end Montez Sweat and quickly signed him to the highest annual average pay in franchise history, there was no doubt he would shoot to the top of the pecking order at his position.
The question was whose snaps Sweat would cut into out of Yannick Ngakoue and DeMarcus Walker.
In Sweat’s Bears debut, a 24-17 loss to the Saints, the team rotated the three of them evenly. Sweat and Ngakoue were the starters, but they and Walker all played about two-thirds of the game. Sweat was in for 65% of the snaps, while Walker was in for 67% and Ngakoue was in for 65%.
The Bears had been playing Ngakoue about 77% of the snaps on average, and Walker was around 70%, so not much changed in Sweat’s first game. Sweat typically was playing around 75% of the snaps with the Commanders this season, so he wasn’t far off his usual workload.
Bears coach Matt Eberflus said the plan was to play Sweat, whose first practice was Thursday, on third downs and in two-minute situations.
“He looked good,” Eberflus said of Sweat. “He had a couple of good pressures there. He is getting his feet wet — different style of defense, different style of terminology. For him to come in and play that many plays was cool.”
The Bears brought in Sweat, 27, to solve their biggest problem other than quarterback. They’ve had the fewest sacks in the NFL the last two seasons with just 30 in 26 games. They signed him to a four-year, $98 million contract through 2027 on Saturday.
