Gervon Dexter Sr. is proving one Chicago Bears' offseason decision right

The Chicago Bears let Justin Jones walk in free agency to give Gervon Dexter a chance to ascend into the starting role. The move made plenty of sense. Jones was not a significant starter and Dexter is a former second-round pick. Still, Dexter did not show much in his rookie season and the lack of assets behind him made it a question as to how much of an upgrade it would be. So far, it has been a notable upgrade for the Bears. 

Last season, Justin Jones had 170 pass-rush attempts and 94 run-defense snaps through the first six weeks of the season. So far this year, Dexter has 134 rushes and 91 snaps against the run. 

Dexter has an 11% pass-rush win rate and an 8.7 pass-rush productivity score, per PFF. That comes from 18 pressures, with four sacks and six quarterback hits. 

Gervon Dexter Sr. has been a massive upgrade in the middle of the Chicago Bears defensive line.

On the flip side, Jones had a 5.5% pass-rush win rate at this point last year, and a 4 on the productivity score. He had 13 pressures, but none were sacks, and he had only five quarterback hits. Jones ended up with 4.5 sacks last year, and Dexter is just half of a sack away from tying that mark in the first half of the season. 

To be fair, Jones had a 7.6% run-stop rate last year, and Dexter is 5.6%. Still, last year, Dexter finished with a 4.6% run-stop rate, and that came on 134 run snaps. He is 43 snaps away from that many and has improved on his run defense.

When you have Andrew Billings, who is a space-eater, and Montez Sweat and DeMarcus Walker are both notably strong run defenders this seems to be a bit less of an issue. They will take the improved pass-rush skills that Dexter is bringing to the table. This is something that the team did not have last year and has taken the defense to the next level.