Sacks are often used as the qualifying number to indicate that the Bears’ 2017 defense was in fact, good. The Bears finished with 42 sacks last year — tied for seventh with three other teams — and that’s somehow an automatic qualifier for their pass rush being okay and on the rise. Never mind their abject lack of consistent pressure on quarterbacks and overall barren depth on the edge: 42 sacks means the Bears have enough, no question.
What’s never been factored in is how little the Bears’ outside linebackers contributed to that magical number.