Bears defensive line ranked 6th in NFL by Pro Football Focus
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The Chicago Bears have long been recognized as a defense-first football team. It’s been especially true in recent seasons thanks in large part to the offense’s struggles behind the leadership — or lack of it — of Mitch Trubisky.
In order for any defense to work, it has to have a strong defensive line. And that’s one of the reasons why the Bears have been borderline dominant (at times) over the last few seasons.
Even now that Chicago’s defense has lost some of its appeal, the defensive line remains one of the league’s most respected. According to Pro Football Focus, it’s the sixth-best unit in the NFL.
Despite what his sack totals in recent seasons may suggest, Khalil Mack is still the NFL’s most dominant edge defender on a snap-for-snap basis. He was the most valuable edge defender in the league last season by PFF’s Wins Above Replacement metric, and he holds the same title across his three seasons with the Bears.
The unit loses Roy Robertson-Harris and Brent Urban heading into 2021 but returns nose tackle Eddie Goldman from an opt-out. Goldman’s run-defense grade across the 2018 and 2019 seasons ranked in the 92nd percentile among all players at the position.
Mack’s presence alone makes the Bears’ defensive front a top-10 group, but the return of Goldman and the continued high-level play of Akiem Hicks (who wasn’t mentioned by PFF) has the arrow pointing up in 2021.
