Ben Johnson is starting to turn up the heat on two specific defensive players to start performing better than what they’ve shown after Week 2
By A to Z Sports,Kole Noble
Copyright yardbarker
Ben Johnson is turning up the pressure on Montez Sweat and Dayo Odeyingbo
“It’s not just Montez [Sweat], it’s our entire unit right now,” head coach Ben Johnson told reporters on Monday. “We didn’t effect the quarterback as a whole. We’ll certainly look at where we can help him so that he can succeed a little bit more in terms of getting that done. I think Dayo [Odeyingbo] on the other side, when he gets the one-on-ones, we need to see a little bit more production there.”
To put it frankly, Sweat and Odeyingbo are not playing anywhere near to the level their price tags seem to suggest for this team. As primary edge rushers, these two need to be dominating games playing together and making offenses regret putting them in one-on-one positions.Odeyingbo had a solid debut game for the Bears in Week 1 with three pressures and a sack but followed it up with zero pressures in Week 2. Sweat, meanwhile, has totaled three pressures with zero sacks through two games as one of the team’s highest-paid players.
“The one area that [Sweat] is hearing from our coaches right now is when he does get these one-on-one opportunities, whether it’s with tackles or the tight ends, we’d like to see him capitalize on those just a little bit more,” Johnson explained. “It’s few and far between that they’re singling him up, but we would like to see him get to the quarterback.”
Sweat did have one sack against the Lions in the first-quarter, but the play was negated due to an offsetting penalty after cornerback Tyrique Stevenson was called for an illegal contact.”I thought he did have a nice move there on the sack and was able to finish at the quarterback,” Johnson said. “That was good to see. He’s doing some really good things for us, even if it’s not showing up on the stat sheet quite yet, in terms of getting close to the quarterback in the passing game and he is doing a nice job in the run game as well.”
Believe it or not, Sweat did have the defense’s third-highest PFF grade of the day with an 80.3 defensive grade and the highest pass rush grade on the team at 86.1. He just needs to finish better on those plays and especially win his one-on-one matchups like the team pays him to do.
