While doubt surrounded Mitch Trubisky in Chicago’s 10-3 loss to the Packers on Thursday, it was another former first-round pick that inspired confidence.
Outside linebacker Leonard Floyd led a promising defensive effort against the Green Bay, holding Aaron Rodgers to just 10 points.
Floyd accounted for two of the Bears’ five sacks on Rodgers, including a beauty of a bull rush on one of the game’s best left tackles in David Bakhtiari.
Floyd didn’t register his first sack until the Bears’ ninth game in 2018. It took him all but six plays to accomplish the feat in 2019. Floyd had four sacks all of last season, which was due in part to him wearing a cast to nurse a broken hand. Floyd totaled half of that in just his first game of 2019.
This is a big season for Floyd, who’s looking to quell doubts about his ability to be an effective pass rusher worthy of a ninth overall selection.
“I think Leonard [Floyd] as a pure, natural pass rusher has a bigger toolbox than anybody else I’m coaching right now,” outside linebackers coach Ted Monachino told reporters this past offseason. “The better rusher right now is [Khalil Mack] but the natural pass-rush ability, the pass-rush gene? 94 has it.”
The Bears exercised Floyd’s fifth-year option, showing that they have confidence he can become the player they drafted him to be. If he can show that he can be an effective pass rusher in this league, he should be in Chicago for years to come.
