Great pass rushers are hard to find. The Chicago Bears know this better than anybody. In their entire history, they’ve only ever drafted two who managed to top 50 sacks in their careers. That was Dan Hampton and Richard Dent. All the others like Steve McMichael or Doug Atkins were acquired via free agency or trade. That’s just how the Bears defense has operated.
It could be how it all happens again. Everybody in the NFL was stunned when GM Ryan Pace pulled the trigger on the trade to acquire All-Pro pass rusher Khalil Mack from Oakland. Nobody thought the Raiders would actually go through with the deal. Others didn’t think Pace had the guts to pay the hefty price to get him.
All were wrong. Now one of the best defensive players in football joins a defense that was already pretty good last year, finishing 10th overall. People shudder at what the possibilities might be like for it in 2018. Patrick Finley of the Chicago Sun-Times caught up with two all-time great pass rushers for an idea.
To borrow a line from Kohl’s? “Expect great things.”
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Pat Swilling and Lawrence Taylor hint Bears defense about to be elite
When it comes to putting the quarterback on his backside and what that does for a defense? Few men know about it more than Pat Swilling and Lawrence Taylor. Swilling was a five-time Pro Bowler who dominated in New Orleans, Detroit, and Oakland for over a decade, collecting 107.5 sacks. Nobody knows Bears defensive coordinator Vic Fangio better and warns what he’s capable of when he has a talent like Mack onboard.
“Putting him in Vic Fangio’s system will only enhance his career,” he said. “Being a player, based on what coach Fangio’s done, he’s very fortunate to have landed where he’s landed. …
“When it comes down to understanding pass rusher, there’s no one better than Vic Fangio.”
Lawrence Taylor to this day is still widely considered the best defensive player in NFL history. Not to mention one of the best pass rushers. He was a 10-time Pro Bowler for the Giants who won MVP in 1986 and retired with 132.5 sacks. He was even more direct about the likely impact Mack would have.
“Hey, if the guy handles his business — and is the guy that he has been — and continues to get better, than ya, he was well worth it,” Taylor said via email. “Listen, if Khalil does his thing, he makes every M-Fer on that defense better.”
Want numbers to back it up? In games last season where the defense has at least three sacks, the team was 4-3 and gave up an average of 15.28 points per game. When they failed to, they were 1-8 and surrendered 22.11 points per game. This means with Mack on board all the Bears offense would have to do is average around 16 points per game for the team to have a reasonable chance of winning this season.
It doesn’t get much easier than that, especially for somebody like Matt Nagy. This could be the Mack effect those two are talking about.
