Chicago Bears provide Caleb Williams with weapons in draft but struggling pass rush gets little help
It’s a good thing Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson is regarded as one of the NFL’s elite offensive minds. It’s possible his team could need to put up 30 or more points a game to match last season’s win output after the Bears went through the draft and virtually ignored one of the team’s greatest perceived weaknesses. The Bears failed to draft a defensive end and the only defensive lineman they took was South African Jordan van den Berg of Georgia Tech in the sixth round.
LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — It’s a good thing Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson is regarded as one of the NFL’s elite offensive minds. It’s possible his team could need to put up 30 or more points a game to match last season’s win output after the Bears went through the draft and virtually ignored one of the team’s greatest perceived weaknesses.
The Bears failed to draft a defensive end and the only defensive lineman they took was South African Jordan van den Berg of Georgia Tech in the sixth round. That came after the defense finished 27th and 28th the last two years against the run and had only 35 sacks last year. General manager Ryan Poles said drafting late in rounds made trading up to find an edge rusher difficult, especially in the second round.
“When we made that turn into two, we had a good sense through our research that that was going to be a hot spot at the very top of two,” Poles said. “It wasn’t really possible to get up that high without giving up a ton. And at the end of the day, we would just follow the board.
” At least they came away with a potential starting safety in the first round. Oregon's Dillon Thieneman could play alongside Coby Bryant. “It’s rare that you see a safety as a guy that you really worry about and yet it was pretty quickly that you could turn on his tape and realize that he’s always around the football,” Johnson said.
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