The Chicago Bears are back to square one, “at the bottom again,” according to head coach Ben Johnson. However, that’s not really true. They now carry with them the expectation that they will be a good team. “Improvement” isn’t enough–they need to keep winning, and that will be hard so long as the defense continues to struggle. So, what does a “good” team look like on defense? How are such defenses constructed, and how far away is Chicago from its peers?
Defining “Good” Benchmarks
Any time I perform one of these assessments,
it’s a challenge to define the candidate pool. Go back too far and the information becomes outdated. Use too broad of definitions and it’s not a worthwhile comparison. Don’t go back far enough and the sample size is too small, which is the same problem with insisting on benchmarking too small of a group (like only Super Bowl champions). For simplicity’s sake, I went with a snapshot of teams that have been “good” during the regular season and that also proved it during the postseason while Ryan Poles has been the GM of Chicago. Thus, this review looks only at teams that were fielded from 2022-2025 and that (a) had at least ten wins while (b) also winning at least one playoff game. The pool of qualifiers includes 27 teams/seasons over four years—four example, the Buffalo Bills are featured four times, but the Washington Commanders appear only once.
Key Contributors vs. On the Roster
However, not every player should be counted just because he was rostered. For example, the Chicago Bears would make this list for their performance in 2025, but in no way would Shemar Turner represent a meaningful part of their playoff run even though the team spent a 2nd-round pick on him. Therefore, in order to be included in this assessment, the player had to fulfill one of two conditions–he needed to play in at least 50% of the team’s regular-season snaps or he needed to be one of the top snap-getters at his position (the top 4 or 5 defensive linemen, the top 2 linebackers, and/or the top 4 defensive backs). In practice, though, a player who fuflilled one of these conditions usually fulfilled the other.
Initial Observations
As trite as it seems, good teams are built by stacking multiple high-end draft picks while also filling important roles with Day Two picks and free agents. Major impact players are not typically found in later rounds for more than a few positions at a time. The average team in this sample rostered five players they drafted in the first round. Additionally, of these players, 1.75 (mean) or 2 (median) had already been on the team for at least five years, including on average 1 defender. It takes sustained drafting to build a contender, it seems. In fact, only seven teams–including the Chicago Bears–made the “good” list without at least one veteran first-round pick.
“Good” Defensive Lines
How were the defensive lines for the good teams constructed? As mentioned, I took the top four snap-getters (4-3 defense) or the top five snap-getters (3-4 defense), with the intent of also making sure to include any defensive lineman who had at least 50% of the snaps. This turned out not to be an issue, because in all cases such players were among the top four or five contributors. However, this did not always align with traditional roles, though, because teams play who they want to play. For example, four of the top five snap-getters for the 2022 San Francisco 49ers were edge defenders but only one was a defensive tackle.
Of the 117 qualifying players, only 29 were first-round draft picks made by the team in question (essentially, one per team), but another did represent a trade that involved a first-round pick (Frank Clark). Six teams even met the criteria for “good team” without having a single first-round pick as a major contributor on the defensive line. Even expanding the definition of “premium picks” to include second-rounders, 11 “good” teams had only one “premium pick” as a key contributor on DL. Barely more than half of these featured players (61) were taken in the first three rounds.
In short, while building the defensive line for a “good” team did frequently involve some premium draft capital, it wasn’t essential that these teams featured multiple highly drafted players. In fact, contrary to conventional wisdom, only 69 of these players were drafted by the team in question at all, and more than half of the teams (15 of 27) found at least half of their featured players through free agency.
As a side note, the average weight of a defensive tackle in this group was 310lbs (both mean and median) and the average weight of an edge defender was 262lbs (or 265 for median). Only 13% of the edges were under 250lbs and only 20% of the defensive tackles were over 320lbs. In general, then, the “good” teams seem to give the majority of their snaps to larger edge defenders and lighter defensive tackles, relatively speaking.
“Good” Secondaries
A higher percentage of the secondary players were drafted by the teams in question compared to defensive linemen (65% compared to 59%), but the scope of resources invested was different. Of 128 qualifying players, only 15 were first-round draft picks made by the team in question and only two teams saw multiple first-round picks playing key roles. Just under half of the “good teams” featured a first-round pick in the secondary (12), and a little over a third were taken in the first three rounds (48). Whereas a majority of teams featured free agents for half of their spots on the defensive line, only eight of the “good” teams found at least half of their key defensive backs in free agency.
Compared to the defensive line, teams were far more likely to build a secondary through the draft, but they did so with a greater variety of selections. Interestingly, the Super Bowl champion each season did have at least one defensive back drafted in the first round, as did six of the eight teams contending for the Super Bowl in this time.
Thus, it seems accurate to say that the “good” teams considered the secondary to be an important aspect of team building, and they played defensive backs that they themselves drafted as opposed to mixing in more than a few free agents.
…and the rest?
Only 58 off-ball linebackers qualify here, and exactly half of those were drafted by the team that fielded them, with the majority of the rest being free agent acquisitions. About 10% (6) were undrafted free agents, and fewer (only 4) were taken with first-round picks. The last “good” team to play a highly-drafted off-ball linebacker for the majority of the team’s snaps was the 2023 Ravens, who played their own first-round pick and another team’s first-round pick that they gave up more than a second-round selection (in trade) to acquire. The only other appearances were by one-off teams (the Lions and Cowboys) or by the Bills when they still carried Tremaine Edmunds.
None of the teams that made the Super Bowl in this time featured an offball linebacker who they spent a first-round selection on playing at least 50% of defensive snaps. In simple terms, contenders typically did not invest more than token assets at linebacker.
Building a “Typical” Good Team
Taken as a whole, the typical good team would have two first-round picks (okay, 1.8) contributing on least 50% of snaps on defense. One of those first-round picks would ideally be on the defensive line, with edge defender (19) favored over defensive tackle (10). The other first-round pick would probably be in the secondary (and this would be the 0.8). As one note of hesitation, it’s worth pointing out that in 2022, the “good” teams averaged 1.33 first-round defensive linemen while in 2025 it was 0.5—there’s a lot of room for variation in such a small sample.
Next, a Day Two pick would also be spent on the “other” role of the defensive line (tackle or edge), as is the case with an average of one such player per team. Slightly more than one Day Two pick per team would also be spent at defensive back, as well. It is also worth noting that players in this category did not emerge out of nowhere—they were frequently contributing snaps in other seasons, as well, even if they did not hit the 50% threshold consistenty.
Another late draft selection might be featured on the defensive line, and more than likely one on the secondary and another on an off-ball linebacker. However, most of the remaining roles (two defensive linemen, two players in the secondary, and another off-ball linebacker) would all be filled in free agency.
How the 2026 Bears Compare
With one exception, the 2026 Bears are consistent with their peers in how their defensive line is constructed. They have Gervon Dexter (a 2nd-round pick) as well as Grady Jarrett (a free agent) and Austin Booker (a late-round selection) as three of their four main contributors. That group of primary contributors is weak by exactly one veteran first-round pick. Interestingly, Chicago does have the equivalent of that veteran in the form of Montez Sweat (a former first-round selection acquired for a 2nd-round pick).
Additionally, with the selection of Dillon Thieneman, the Chicago secondary now consists of a first-round selection and a trio of Day Two selections (Johnson, Gordon, and Stevenson), plus a later selection (Muhammad) and a single free agent (Bryant). That in fact checks out in terms of total investment. The linebacker corps is consistent, in that it will consist of either later draft picks or free agents. As of 2026, Chicago is ready to meet the rather limited benchmarks defined by this review.
Conclusions
If the Bears had a home-grown veteran defensive lineman who they had drafted in the first round instead of Montez Sweat, the defense would be perfectly in line with the norms for their peers. However, they don’t. In fact, going back to the earlier overview, they are actually short of their peers by two veteran first-round picks, or by one first-round pick overall. The missing quality on the defense is essentially what was lost from the 2019, 2020, and 2022 drafts. Even had they kept Roquan Smith, having an elite pick spent on an off-ball linebacker would have put them in the minority.
Instead, having retained Leonard Floyd or having not given away three first-round selections would in fact “fill the gaps” on the defensive roster. It is actually remarkable how close Chicago is to its peer group when considering that they started without a first-round selection in 2022. In just four drafts, they are now potentially capable of meeting the standard set by other “good” teams on defense. Soon, hopefully, the results on the field will match the investment made on paper.
In some ways, this will be an unpopular set of findings. There will be a desire by many to find ways the Bears fall short of their peers, and until the results show on the box score, those concerns will be valid. However, it is equally valid to point out that the investment in Thieneman places the Bears’ roster construction on more even footing with Super Bowl contenders, and that the limitations of their defensive line (and the roster in general) are a stark demonstration of how trading away first-round picks for any reason compromises a team’s future.
