LAKE FOREST, Ill. -- Throughout the 2026 offseason, the Chicago Bears said they would prioritize fixing the team's weakest link: disrupting opposing quarterbacks.
The Bears were interested in acquiring five-time Pro Bowl defensive end Maxx Crosby until learning the price of a trade. Chicago felt that the way it handled free agency left multiple options available in the draft, but the Bears used only one of their seven draft picks on a defensive lineman, and not until selecting Georgia Tech defensive tackle Jordan van den Berg 213th overall.
The narrative around how the Bears will fix a unit that ranked 31st in pass rush win rate (29%) and 29th in pressure percentage (28%) went from needing more talent to emphasizing better coaching to getting the most out of the players the Bears already have.
"We're certainly going to coach better than what we did a year ago," coach Ben Johnson said. "It starts there. We've made a concerted effort with how we're going to get that done."
That directive caused defensive coordinator Dennis Allen to look inward to find a solution.
"We had a lot of discussions this offseason about a lot of different things, and one of the things we identified was me," Allen said. "We focused so much on installing all the scheme last year because it was brand new, and we do have a high volume of things we carry in the defense. We focused so much on that that we lost sight of some of the fundamentals and techniques that it takes to function, to do those things.
"I don't think we were as fundamentally sound defensively as we needed to be. So how do we have to coach it better? Well, let's minimize how much we're focused on the scheme, OK, and let's focus on not what we're going to do but how we're going to do it. I think that's how we're going to improve."
Bears defensive line coach Jeremy Garrett can't remember another time in his career when coaches spent the first two weeks of the offseason without dissecting scheme. There was no talk of specific fronts or where players would line up. Everything was focused on three specific goals to hone technique:
Improving get-off -- a player's ability to drive off their dominant leg to get up field.
Body lean -- using a front- and side-angle video to see which players are pushing and generating more power while in the process of rushing.
Putting those things together to finish in the backfield and disrupt the quarterback.
"We've been out at practice and you can see the improvement of the guys," Garrett said. "You spend two weeks and all I'm watching is individual. I'm not watching the scheme. I'm watching our get-off, our pad level, I'm watching our drill work. We're correcting that. We're fixing that."
Statistical evidence supports Allen's assertion that the Bears' scheme is to blame for some of the pass rush's struggles, while injury concerns, talent discrepancy and execution issues are among the other reasons.
The Bears sent four or fewer pass rushers on 72% of plays. That yielded a 5% sack percentage (23rd), 24% pressure percentage (30th) and 24% pass rush win rate (28th).
The defense wasn't much more effective when rushing five or more (28% of plays). Chicago's sack percentage (8%, 14th), pressure percentage (39th, 24th) and pass rush win rate (43%, 31st) increased marginally.
According to ESPN Research, despite blitzing on 28% of opponent dropbacks (12th highest in the NFL), the Bears still could not get to the quarterback. Of the Bears' 35 sacks -- only six teams had fewer -- 13 came when sending the blitz (11th highest percentage in the NFL).
Defensive end Montez Sweat put together his second-best season as a pro and finished with a team-high 10 sacks. Sweat led the Bears with 44 pressures while the next closest defender was defensive tackle Gervon Dexter Sr., who had 17. That difference of 27 was the fourth largest between a team's top two pressure generators last season.
Not long after the Bears used their first-round draft pick to select Oregon safety Dillon Thieneman 25th overall, general manager Ryan Poles intimated that improving the secondary would mitigate the issues Chicago faces up front.
"Obviously the D-line helps the back end more often than not," Poles said. "But in this situation, where we have good corners, good safeties, we can be in a position where maybe we can have the quarterback hold the ball a little longer."
Aside from adding depth on the interior of the D-line with Neville Gallimore, Kentavius Street and James Lynch in free agency, the group the Bears currently have is who they're expected to field this fall. When asked about the possibility of reuniting with free agent defensive end Cam Jordan, whom he coached in New Orleans, Allen didn't seem optimistic.
"I think we feel pretty good about where we're at and what we have and yet, you never know what opportunities might present themselves down the road," Allen said.
Sweat was by far the most effective pass rusher on the Bears, and it wasn't close. And he is once again whom Chicago will need to rely on while the team figures out who will be his complement at defensive end.
Among those candidates is Dayo Odeyingbo, who was limited to eight games with an Achilles rupture after signing a three-year, $48 million contract in March 2025. Odeyingbo will "definitely be in the mix" at defensive end when the team gets to training camp, according to Allen, after totaling eight pressures and one sack last season.
The Bears also believe Austin Booker (4.5 sacks) and Shemar Turner will provide competition at defensive end. Booker began the 2025 season on injured reserve and showed improvement toward the end of the season after 10 games. Turner, who mostly played on the interior of the D-line at Texas A&M before the Bears drafted him in the second round, was placed on injured reserve after appearing in five games. Chicago believes Turner can play multiple spots along the defensive line, including at edge.
At the conclusion of the draft, both Johnson and Poles were confident that they had added the right mix of players to create competition at every spot. The Bears fell short of doing that with their defensive line and will bank heavily on their ability to coach better to generate better results from effectively the same pool of talent that they fielded in 2025.