Pro Football Focus recently released its one-year wonder team from 2006 to the present. The Chicago Bears have one current player on the roster who made the cut.
The Chicago Bears have plenty of talent on its roster, but only one player on the team made the Pro Football Focus (PFF) one-year wonder team. When it comes to playing in the NFL, plenty of players are basically average. They are good enough to maintain their roster spot, but not all can maintain an above-average performance. The players on the PFF one-year wonder team had one amazing season but were never able to reach that type of production again.
A quick rundown of some of the names PFF chose to for its one-year wonder team includes Robert Griffin, III (2012) at quarterback and Peyton Hillis (2010) at running back. Both of these players had amazing seasons but never were able to replicate them. These are just two of the 20 players PFF listed.
The Chicago Bears have one player on the roster who found himself within the 20 players PFF used to make up its one-year wonder team. That player has not even played a single snap for the team though. That’s right, the player on the team is a free agent that Ryan Pace signed this offseason — Robert Quinn.
Robert Quinn holds the top defender grade since 2006
The Chicago Bears are Quinn’s fourth team since being drafted in 2011 by the St. Louis Rams. His career has been up and down, but for the most part, Quinn has had a solid career. With a couple down years, Quinn has still racked up 80.5 sacks in nine years. For those counting at home, that is just shy of nine sacks per season on average.
Last year, Quinn had 11.5 sacks, but this was not the best of his career. The worst year of Quinn’s career came in 2016 when he only came away with four. Injuries have been a factor, but he has also been relatively healthy the last three years.
The reason that Quinn made the PFF list is not that he could not hit double-digit sacks more than once in his career. In fact, he has done so four times. However, in 2013, Quinn came away with 19 sacks, forced seven fumbles, recovered two and scored the only touchdown of his career.
What is even crazier is that he did not lead the NFL in sacks that year. He was half a sack short of tying Robert Mathis. He did have the most tackles for loss though with 23. He finished the season with a 93.6 PFF grade — the highest mark of any EDGE rusher with 500 or more snaps in a season.
That season also makes him one of only four defenders to finish with more than 90 quarterback pressures in a season. Amazingly, the Bears have a second player within that four in Khalil Mack (2016). Quinn does not need to come away with 19 sacks for the Chicago Bears in 2020. That would be pretty amazing though if he did. Pairing him up across from Mack should make for a deadly front seven. I expect a minimum of eight sacks for Quinn this year.