Chicago Bears: Previews and projections for defense in 2018
Defensive Line
Sure, you probably knew Akiem Hicks has been a really solid investment for the Chicago Bears in his two seasons here. But did you realize that he has posted 15.5 sacks since Ryan Pace signed him in 2016? For perspective, he only had 9.5 career sacks in four years prior to that.
That’s just one stat to illustrate how big a difference he’s made up front for the Bears’ defense. And with Eddie Goldman, Chicago has one of the toughest inside tandems in the league.
The problem remains: who’s going to make plays opposite them?
Mitch Unrein is gone, and even when he was here, he didn’t make too many splashes, as solid as he was.
Jonathan Bullard and Roy Robertson-Harris should take over and make their presences known in the defensive line rotation, but we still have to see it on the field. The flashes of disruption have to become more consistent.
And rookie Bilal Nichols should push to get into the rotation early, but we don’t know what we can expect from him yet.
So even if we can pencil in another 7+ sack season from Hicks and more double-team busting from Goldman (who registered a career-high 27 total tackles last year), what can we get from this unit as a whole?
I expect that Bullard will ultimately get the first crack at the starting defensive end spot opposite Hicks. And one would hope that, with increased playing time, he takes advantage of the attention paid to Hicks and Goldman more frequently.
In an abstract sense, we just need to see him continuing to improve as a two-gap defensive end. Keep occupying space and challenging double-teams with his quickness and explosion. And in terms of tangible numbers, let’s see four sacks from Bullard. That would be a perfectly solid number.
Robertson-Harris and Nichols will get chances to show their stuff in the rotation, with RHH nabbing two more sacks in 2018 and Nichols posting two as well.
In the end, though, it’s all about the disruption up front and setting things up for the linebackers. As long as they succeed at that, the raw stats won’t matter as much.
That’s what makes the defensive line group so hard to project.