Bears vs. Cowboys: Why Leonard Floyd is the key to victory

Why the key to a Chicago Bears victory against the Dallas Cowboys may not be who you are thinking.

As the Chicago Bears prepare to take the field against the Dallas Cowboys later tonight, they will need a team effort to come away with a victory and move to 7-6 to realistically stay in the playoff hunt. However, if you had to point to one player who will be the most critical to secure that victory, it would have to be Leonard Floyd.

Sure, the obvious choice would be Mitchell Trubisky, who has flashed the last two weeks against inferior opponents. Of course, if he comes out and has a lights-out game, the Bears are almost assured a win.

However, while he has played better as of late, he has not done enough this year to be confident that he can deliver the kind of offensive performance to dominate an opponent from start to finish.

Instead, it’s more realistic to expect a performance similar to what he delivered against the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving. While that would be nice, it also will likely not be enough to beat the Cowboys who boast a top-five offense, and three quality wide receivers in Amari Cooper, Michael Gallup, and Chicago-killer Randall Cobb.

In order to limit Dallas in the passing game, who leads the league in total offense (432 yards/game) and passing offense (305 yards/game), they are going to need to get a lot of pressure on Dak Prescott.

With Akiem Hicks out, Khalil Mack has had a hard time having the kind of game-wrecking impact he did at the beginning of the year. That’s because, without Hicks, Mack is getting all the attention in the form of double and triple teams.

Besides being a game-wrecker himself, Hicks served the role of taking attention away from Mack so he wasn’t drawing so many double and triple teams. So far, no one on the Bears defense has stepped up to be the guy to force defenses to take attention away from Mack.

The one player that has the ability to do that is Leonard Floyd. However, he has failed to contribute the kind of pressure you’d expect out of a former top-ten pick in his fourth season. His failure to routinely win one-on-one battles each week while Mack his occupying half the offensive line’s attention has been incredibly disappointing.

The good news for the Bears is that they will likely get Hicks back next week for the Green Bay Packers game. However, this week, they need someone to step up so that Prescott can’t sit in the pocket all day and pick apart a secondary that is weakened by an injury to Prince Amukamara. It’s time for Leonard Floyd to be the presence the defense needs.