3 reasons to question Chicago Bears signing Yannick Ngakoue
The Chicago Bears signed Yannick Ngakoue in a move that so many fans and analysts could see coming. The Bears big weakness entering the year was a pass rusher, and you could not find one with a better resume in recent years than Ngakoue. Still, the move did take time, and Ngakoue lingered in free agency for a while.
The move makes plenty of sense, but there has to be some downside. What is it?
3. Can Yannick Ngakoue be consistent for the Chicago Bears?
Yannick Ngakoue always gets his stats, but there is a reason that he bounces from team-to-team. It may be that he is a bit worried about his stats on paper than the down-to-down production. Not many pass rushers can say that they have eight sacks in every season, and the Bears will take that.
Still, he has always lined up with some great rushers around him such as Calais Campbell, Danielle Hunter, and DeForest Buckner. More than that, it shows in the stats that he is not a consistent pass rusher.
Last season, he ranked 12th amongst qualified edge rushers in sacks. However, he ranked 41st in total pressures. Crazier than that, he ranked 135th in pass rush win rate. So, he does not win often, but when he does win, he gets to the quarterback.
His pass rush productivity was 6.9 last season. His win rate was 7.1%. Samson Ebukam, Carl Lawson, Joseph Ossai, Marcus Davenport, and Alex Highsmith were all at about the same pass rush productivity, but none of them had a win rate under 10%. The only player with a higher pass rush production score on a worse win rate was Michael Hoecht.
Even Trevis Gipson had an 8.9% win rate last year, and Rasheem Green was at 8.1%. It is fair to admit that Ngakoue is better at producing his wins than those two. However, the fact that he is not beating his man as often as those two has to be alarming. Does he need someone to help him clear a path to be better at cleaning things up? Or does he just pick his spots, and the team will need to be okay with the downs because of the ups?