Super Bowl 60 Sends a Clear Message to the Bears: Build the Front Four, or Stay Home in February
The curtain has officially closed on the 2025 NFL season, and the Seattle Seahawks are walking off the stage with the Lombardi Trophy in hand after a dominant Super Bowl 60 win over the New England Patriots. While Seattle’s defense stole the show on the biggest stage, teams like the Chicago Bears were watching closely-not just as fans of the game, but as contenders trying to figure out how to take that next step.
And if the Bears were paying attention, the takeaway was loud and clear: if you want to win in this league, you have to build a defensive front that can take over a game.
Seattle’s Blueprint for Dominance
Let’s start with what Seattle did. Six sacks.
Eleven quarterback hits. A pressure rate of 51% in the Super Bowl.
That’s not just disruptive-that’s game-wrecking. And the most impressive part?
They did it without dialing up the blitz. Seattle came into the game with a 35.8% pressure rate using just four rushers, third-best in the league.
That kind of efficiency with a standard rush is the holy grail for modern defenses.
It’s no coincidence that kind of performance led to a championship. The Seahawks didn’t just beat the Patriots-they suffocated them. And in doing so, they put the rest of the league on notice.
Where the Bears Stand-and Where They Need to Go
Now, let’s talk about Chicago. The Bears made real progress this past season.
There's no denying that. But if they're serious about making a run at the Super Bowl, the defensive line has to take a massive leap forward.
Chicago ended the year tied for the seventh-fewest sacks in the NFL with 35. Montez Sweat led the team with 10, and Gervon Dexter Jr. chipped in with six.
After that, the drop-off was steep-only two other players had more than 1.5 sacks. In today’s NFL, that’s simply not enough.
Not when you’re trying to go toe-to-toe with elite offenses and quarterbacks who can pick apart soft coverage if given time.
The top defenses in the league don’t just rely on scheme-they win with talent up front. When you can generate pressure with four, you unlock everything else.
You can drop seven into coverage, disguise looks, and force quarterbacks to make mistakes. And while the Bears’ secondary has room to grow, a better pass rush would make life easier for everyone on the back end.
The Foundation Is There-Now It’s Time to Build
To be clear, the Bears aren’t starting from scratch. They’ve got the most important pieces in place: a head coach and quarterback duo that looks like it could define the next era of Bears football.
In year one of the Ben Johnson-Caleb Williams partnership, the offense ranked sixth in total yards (369.2 per game) and eighth in scoring (25.9 points per game). That’s a massive step forward for a team that’s spent years searching for offensive identity.
But now the spotlight shifts to the other side of the ball. If the Bears want to be more than a playoff team-if they want to be a championship team-they have to invest in the defensive line.
That means adding more firepower alongside Sweat and Dexter. That means finding guys who can win one-on-ones, collapse the pocket, and make quarterbacks uncomfortable from the first snap to the last.
Let’s not forget: Chicago finished the regular season with the best turnover differential in the league at +22. That’s a testament to smart, opportunistic football.
But imagine what that number could look like if the Bears were consistently forcing hurried throws and strip-sack opportunities. A better pass rush doesn’t just help the defense-it helps the entire team.
The Path Forward
The Seahawks just laid out the blueprint. They showed what it looks like when a defense can take over a game and carry a team to a title.
The Bears have the offense. They have the leadership.
Now, they need the pass rush.
This offseason isn’t about tweaking the roster-it’s about making a statement. If Chicago wants to be in the Super Bowl conversation next February, it starts with building a defensive front that can dominate in January.
The message from Super Bowl 60 is clear. The Bears would be wise to listen.