One of the Achilles' heels of this Chicago Bears team is the struggles the edge rushers are having getting to the quarterback for sacks, and the stats are brutal to look at.
This season, the Bears' edge rushers have 6.5 sacks and 14 quarterback hits through seven games. Montez Sweat leads the way with three sacks and six quarterback hits, but doesn't even lead the team in sacks. That honor goes to defensive tackle Gervon Dexter at 3.5.
ESPN analytics guy Seth Walder made the situation worse by showing everyone on X a chart of NFL edge rushers, with double-team rate plus chip rate on the X-axis and pass-rush win rate on the Y-axis. The results? Sweat and Dayo Odeyingbo are both low in the bottom left of the chart, with New Orleans Saints defensive end Cameron Jordan worse than both of them.
New edge rusher chart!
— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) October 28, 2025
I've adjusted this to show double team rate + chip rate (at edge) on x axis. A little messy because we're mixing data sources (possible overlap) but I think important to get chips in there.
Y axis is pass rush win rate at edge. pic.twitter.com/JhJZZrZ6hq
Bears are wasting $146 million on two edge rushers who aren't producing
Here's the good news: Sweat has been playing much better of late, with two consecutive games with at least one sack in a game. Backup defensive end Austin Booker is off the IR and can finally play for the first time this season.
The bad news is that the Bears expect more out of Sweat and Odeyingbo because they are paid in the top half of the NFL among edge rushers. Odeyingbo has been a massive bust, with one sack and three quarterback hits in seven games. Sweat had one sack in the first five games of the year.
This season off the edge has become a disaster that was supposed to be resolved with Dennis Allen coming in as defensive coordinator and Odeyingbo signing his $48 million contract in the offense. The return on investment is nowhere close, and it shouldn't be acceptable to the Bears organization.
Read more: Ben Johnson surprises Bears fans with Caleb Williams evaluation vs. Ravens
Bears general manager Ryan Poles is now in a position where the team might have to give up valuable draft picks to fix a mistake he has made. Something has to happen because what's happened at the position right now isn't cutting it.