The Bears spent free agency trying to add a different kind of pressure with Dayo Odeyingbo, and the key to unlocking that plan is finally back on the table.
Chicago brought him in with the idea that he could win from the interior on passing downs, but that vision barely showed up during a rough first season. This summer, though, the Bears are shifting him back inside in pass-rushing situations during training camp, and that’s where the fit starts to make more sense.
Odeyingbo has done this before. During his time with the Indianapolis Colts, he was regularly asked to move inside, especially early in his career.
As a rookie, he lined up inside a guard on 33% of his snaps. That dipped to 8% in his second NFL season, then climbed back to 17% in his second year before dropping to 9% in his final season with Indianapolis.
That background makes Chicago’s usage last year stand out even more. The Bears signed him expecting to tap into that interior rush ability, but he lined up against a guard on only 5.7% of his snaps. That left a clear mismatch between what the team wanted and how it deployed him.
Part of the problem was depth on the edge. Austin Booker was still a questionable player in his second NFL season, and the Bears didn’t trust him yet on pass-rushing downs. When Odeyingbo went down, Booker got a chance to show what he could do.
Now the picture has changed. The Bears enter the season with trust in Booker, and that gives them more flexibility with Odeyingbo. Booker can push him inside on passing downs, and he can also challenge him for starter snaps.
There’s also the injury factor. Odeyingbo is coming back from an Achilles injury, so Chicago won’t ask him to carry a full workload. Instead, the plan is to use him in spots that play to his strengths.
That means run-defense opportunities, where his bigger body gives the Bears a different look than Booker. It also means more chances to kick him inside when it’s time to rush the passer. In that kind of role, he can stay fresher, be more disruptive, and give Chicago something closer to starter-level impact without being asked to do everything.
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