Asked to explain why he made Oregon’s Dillon Thieneman just the third Round 1 safety picked in the last four drafts, Bears general manager Ryan Poles tried to turn an old football truism on its head.
Typically, coaches say the best way to cover the pass well is to rush the quarterback efficiently. Thursday night, Poles tried to justify taking a safety instead of an edge rusher by saying the inverse can be true — that you can’t rush the passer without good coverage.
“Obviously the D-line helps the back end more often than not,” he said. “But in this situation where, we have good corners, good safeties, we can be in a position where maybe we can have the quarterback hold the ball a little longer.”
That’s not how it works. When cornerback Jaylon Johnson was a second-team all-pro in 2023, the Bears had the second-fewest sacks in the NFL. And when safety Kevin Byard led the NFL in interceptions last year, the Bears finished tied for 21st in sacks. Since Poles took over in 2022, in fact, the Bears lead the NFL in total interceptions — and are second-to-last in sacks.
Thieneman was the second-best safety in the draft and fits coordinator Dennis Allen’s preference for versatility, physicality and speed. In their predraft simulations, the Bears considered it a 50-50 proposition Thieneman would fall past the Vikings at No. 18 and into their laps, and were thrilled when he did.
Even if Thieneman turns out to be a star, though, he doesn’t solve the Bears’ most acute problem in a year they expect to contend for a championship. Both Poles and head coach Ben Johnson said at the start of the offseason that they needed to improve the Bears’ pass rush, which finished second-to-last in pass rush win rate last season.
They checked on Maxx Crosby but blanched at the Raiders’ asking price of two first-round picks. Then they added no one of substance in free agency at edge rusher.
Three edge rushers were drafted in the first 15 selections Thursday. Were the Bears so motivated, they could have moved up just three spots to take Miami’s Akheem Mesidor or two spots to take UCF’s Malachi Lawrence. Or stayed where they were and taken Auburn’s Keldric Faulk, whom the Titans traded up to pick No. 31. Even if the Bears didn’t consider them as much of a sure thing as Thieneman, the payoff — a rookie contract at a premium position — would be worth it.
The Bears haven’t drafted an edge rusher in Round 1 since Leonard Floyd in 2016. The rest of the league, though, knows the best way to land a pass rusher is to draft one early.
In the last 10 years, 90 different defensive linemen have been drafted in Round 1. Thirty teams — all but the Bears and Patriots — have taken one.
Adding one later in the draft remains a crapshoot. Since 2017, there have been 162 instances in which a player recorded 10 or more sacks in a season. Sixty percent of those seasons came from someone drafted in Round 1. Players drafted in Rounds 2-7 accounted for 36 percent, while undrafted players made up 4 percent.
Amazingly, the Bears can claim only 3½ of those seasons — Khalil Mack’s 12½ in 2018, Robert Quinn’s franchise-record 18½ in 2021 and Sweat’s 10 last year. As for the half: Sweat had 12½ in 2023, when he was traded from the Commanders to the Bears at the deadline.
The Bears have invested in edge rushers financially, of course. Ryan Pace traded two first-round picks as part of a package to land Mack in 2018 — and then made him the highest-paid defensive player in NFL history. Poles dealt a second-rounder to the Commanders for Sweat and made him the Bears’ highest-paid player. Last year, Poles gave Dayo Odeyingbo, who’d started only 19 of his 62 games with the Colts, a whopping three-year, $48 million deal. He had one sack in eight games before tearing his Achilles tendon.
It will prove much more difficult to entertain high-priced edge rusher options if the Bears decide to extend quarterback Caleb Williams with the most expensive contract in franchise history. If he makes another leap this season, that could happen as soon as January.
Poles knows he needs to build a budget-friendly team around him. The draft is where you find affordable players — and the first round is where you find players who can rush the passer.
Safeties, you can find later. Of the 10 Bears safeties with the most career starts since the NFL-AFL merger, only one, Mark Carrier, was a first-round pick.
Poles acknowledged that traditional box safeties are relegated to the later rounds, but said Thieneman qualified as an exception because of his speed — Relative Athletic Score, which measures combine testing, ranked him in the top 97 percent of all strong safeties drafted since 1987 — and positional versatility.
The Bears made a similar argument about last year’s first-round pick, too. He didn’t play a premium position, either. No. 10 overall selection Colston Loveland wasn’t just a tight end, they argued — he was a pass-catcher who could create matchup problems in all over the field. They were right, and he led the Bears in receiving yards as a rookie.
Thursday, Poles said Thieneman had a “similar-type person-player combination” to Loveland, citing their shared work ethic, passion and physicality.
They share something else in common, too — neither of them can rush the quarterback.
