This offseason, the Bears will need to acquire another defensive lineman with three techniques.Peter Schrager reports that Justin Jones is going to the Arizona Cardinals from Chicago.
After Larry Ogunjobi, who was first considered for the position, failed a physical, Jones signed with the Bears in 2022. He was a reliable player in the middle of the line, despite being the Bears’ second choice. Although Jones didn’t cause as much disruption in the backfield as the Bears would have wanted, he was without much assistance for a significant portion of his Chicago tenure.
The Bears stress that their pass rushers should assault the quarterback “four as one,” which means that for the unit to be successful, each of the four players must perform at a high level. However, defensive linemen like as Robert Quinn, Al-Quadin Muhammad, Dominique Robinson, and Angelso Blackson produced almost little for the Bears in 2022. It was hardly surprise that Jones’ performance significantly improved after the squad acquired Montez Sweat. Before Sweat joined the Bears, Jones had four sacks, eighteen tackles for loss, and fourteen quarterback hits in twenty-five games. He had 3.5 sacks, four TFLs, and ten quarterback hits in the nine games following the trade.
With Jones gone, the Bears are down to three defensive tackles with contracts for the 2017 season on the active roster: Zacch Pickens, Andrew Billings, and Gervon Dexter. Dexter is the only one in that bunch who is truly ready to start at the top. The 2023 second-round pick saw his play rise up in the second half of the season after making steady progress throughout the year. Pickens, a fellow rookie, played a combination of nose tackle and three-tech, although not as much as Dexter. Billings plays nose tackle most of the time, thus it seems doubtful that he would switch to three-technique.
The Bears want to acquire another guy to the tackle position even if they believe Dexter is ready to play more. To keep players fresh and provide pressure to the opposition quarterback, the team would want to have two waves of linemen.
It remains to be seen if the Bears sign that extra DT in free agency or the draft.
