Ben Johnson sounds off on Bears not drafting any edge rushers

The Chicago Bears left some scratching their heads as they opted not to select any edge rushers in the 2026 NFL Draft. In fact, the only defensive lineman that the Bears selected was defensive tackle Jordan van den Berg out of Georgia Tech, who they took in the sixth round with their final selection of the draft. While they didn't bring in any edge rushers, head coach Ben Johnson explained the reasoning, putting some of it on the coaching staff, believing he has the players on the roster to coach better.

On top of the coaching, Johnson said he has faith in two players who were injured last year, Dayo Odeyingbo and Shemar Turner, in returning to full strength and upgrading their pass rush. "We're certainly going to coach better than we did a year ago," Johnson said. "And like I said before, it starts there.

We've made a concerted effort in how we're going to get that done. We are excited about the guys that ended up finishing the season on IR, the trajectory that they were on, both Dayo (Odeyingbo) and Shemar (Turner). When you look at it from the start of the season to the point where they both got injured, we saw growth and we saw them trending in the right direction, in terms of what we want to see on game day.

"I think (Montez) Sweat had one of his better years in the NFL. Whether that shows up in the sack total or not, he's a very complete player, both in the run game and pass game. I think you saw tremendous growth from (DL Austin) Booker when we were finally able to get him back, as well.