Will Chicago Bears continue to decrease this player's snaps?
One of the biggest disappointments this season has been Yannick Ngakoue. There was always a concern about the type of player he was, and that is why he was a free agent so late into the offseason. Still, he also always seemed to get stats, and it would offset some of the snaps where he was not playing well.
The Chicago Bears need to play Yannick Ngakoue less
This year, he is not playing well straight up. Yannick Ngakoue has three sacks this year after his career-low of eight. Considering they are 12 games down with five to go, it is hard to see him hitting that many.
Ngakoue has not done anything as a pass rusher. He has a 4.5% pass rush win rate. For comparison, Montez Sweat is at 14.4%, and that is with a 16% win rate since being traded to the Bears. DeMarcus Walker has a 10.8% win rate, and that is up in a big way in recent weeks. Even Rasheem Green has a 7.2% win rate, which would be somewhat acceptable.
In 2020, his win rate was 10.1%, and in 2021, it was 10.7%. However, in 2022 it was 7.1%, and now he has completely fallen off. Beyond being the worst pass rusher, he is the worst run defender. He came onto the team with expectations that he would be the worst run-defender on the roster, but they thought the pass rush could offset that. They were wrong.
The Chicago Bears traded for Montez Sweat, thinking that may boost Ngakoue's play. He does have one sack, but his win rate is down from 5.3% to 2.7% in the last four weeks. He has been worse.
That is why it is not a shock that the Chicago Bears are slowly working him in less. Ngakoue played a season-low 52.7% of the snaps before the bye week. His low before that was 62.3%, and that was in week three.
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In the two weeks prior, he played 80% and 72.6%. Perhaps the loss to the Lions was the push to change the plans on defense and move on from Ngakoue. We will see if he plays this little after the bye week.
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