The Chicago Bears built their success from the ground up during Ryan Poles’s tenure, but some draft picks have performed better than others. One of the misfires came when the Bears selected defensive tackle Zacch Pickens in the third round of the 2023 draft, and the South Carolina product has had trouble finding a next opportunity after his release last summer.
Pickens’s latest shot came with the Kansas City Chiefs late last season. But after three nondescript games, Pickens was released by the team on Monday, in a move that could have his career circling the drain as he enters his age-26 season.
Former Bears DT Zacch Pickens on His Last Shot After Chiefs Release
Pickens’s time in Chicago was underwhelming to say the least. While he appeared in all 17 games during his rookie season in 2023, he had just 20 total tackles, a tackle for loss, and 0.5 sacks in 264 defensive snaps, according to Pro Football Focus. Things got worse during the 2024 campaign when he logged 19 tackles and a tackle for loss with a sack in nine games and found himself as a healthy scratch in six of the Bears’ first seven games, finishing with 19 tackles, one tackle for loss, and one sack over a nine-game sample size before being made inactive for the final two games.
It led to an important training camp where Pickens failed to make the team last summer. While he was signed to the Chiefs’ practice squad, he didn’t get promoted until Dec. 13 and didn’t make his Kansas City debut in a Week 16 game against the Tennessee Titans on Dec. 21. While he had four total tackles in that game, he had just one over the final two games, ultimately leading to his release.
The move makes sense for the Chiefs, who added Khiyris Tonga and first-round pick Peter Woods to pair with Chris Jones in the middle of the defensive line. But it also puts Pickens at a crossroads as he looks to regain the form he had with the Gamecocks, where he had 131 total tackles, 11.5 tackles for loss, and 7.5 sacks over 47 career games.
Those results are what Poles expected when he chose Pickens in one of his first drafts. But on a defensive line that is currently overpaying Grady Jarrett, it’s hard not to think about what the miss did to Chicago’s defensive line.
Instead, the Bears will look to move on and Pickens will hope he hasn’t squandered one of his final opportunities in the NFL.
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