{"id":950198,"date":"2026-07-20T00:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T00:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/950198\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T00:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T00:30:19","slug":"three-man-starting-battle-in-bears-pass-rush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/950198\/","title":{"rendered":"Three-Man Starting Battle In Bears’ Pass Rush"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Bears finished 2025 with the seventh-fewest sacks in the league. Star pass rusher Montez Sweat<\/a> led the team with 10.0 sacks, 13 tackles for loss, and 18 quarterback hits, but no other defensive end on the team reached even half his sack total. Chicago will be looking for someone to step up in 2026, and according to Courtney Cronin of ESPN, a three-man competition<\/a> will play out over training camp to determine who will start across from Sweat.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Last year, the Bears employed free agent addition Dayo Odeyingbo<\/a> as a starter after signing him to a three-year, $48MM contract. The team was counting on Odeyingbo to take a step forward after only amassing 16.5 sacks in four years with the Colts. To be fair, Odeyingbo didn\u2019t start until his final year in Indianapolis. He showed strong progress leading up to that, improving from 0.5 sacks as a rookie to five in Year 2 then tallying eight in 2023. Starting 14 games in a contract year, Odeyingbo only totaled three sacks, though he created a decent amount of pressure, as evidenced by 17 quarterback hits.<\/p>\n

In his first year in Chicago, Odeyingbo started eight games before suffering a torn Achilles tendon<\/a>. He notched a sack, a tackle for loss, and two quarterback hits in his first game with the team, but over the next seven weeks, Odeyingbo only made one more tackle for loss and two more quarterback hits. Odeyingbo is expected to return to the field in training camp, but whenever he does, he\u2019ll have to fend off two challengers for his starting position.<\/p>\n

Before the 2025 season began, second-year end Austin Booker<\/a> had been tabbed as a breakout candidate<\/a>, but a knee injury in the preseason put him on injured reserve<\/a> for the first eight weeks of the season. Booker\u2019s first game back was the day Odeyingbo got hurt, allowing for a smooth transition for Booker into the starting lineup for the second half of the season. In 10 games, Booker delivered to some degree on the breakout promise, notching 4.5 sacks, five tackles for loss, and 12 quarterback hits.<\/p>\n

The third man in this competition is second-year defender Shemar Turner<\/a>. The Texas A&M-product debuted in the third week of the season as the Bears worked to shift him out from the more traditional interior role he played in College Station to the edge. The rookie second-rounder ended up splitting his time between the two positions in a rotational role off the bench but wasn\u2019t able to produce much before tearing his ACL<\/a> the week before Odeyingbo\u2019s injury. Upon his return from injury, though, Chicago reportedly intends to continue working<\/a> him in an edge role.<\/p>\n

So, the Bears have two players coming back from serious injuries and Booker, who impressed to some degree in his return from injury last year. The team didn\u2019t make any moves in the draft or free agency to supplement the group, so it seems clear they feel confident moving forward with the group they have. On that note, though, Cronin believes that, if Odeyingbo\u2019s return in camp doesn\u2019t inspire confidence that he\u2019ll be able to effectively contribute this year, Chicago may become a potential destination for one of several veteran free agent pass rushers on the market today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bears finished 2025 with the seventh-fewest sacks in the league. Star pass rusher Montez Sweat led the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":950199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2070],"tags":[7240,374,692,391,2493,593,7,6,1163],"class_list":["post-950198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-bears","tag-austin-booker","tag-bears","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-bears","tag-chicagobears","tag-dayo-odeyingbo","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-shemar-turner"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116949485490645036","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}