In 2023, the Chicago Bears traded a second-round pick for Montez Sweat and gave him $98 million to be an impact pass rusher, but now his future in Chicago is facing a major crossroads
Chicago Bears edge rusher Montez Sweat is the team’s highest-paid player in 2026, and what he’s doing with it is raising real questions about his future.
The Chicago Bears are headed toward another big overhaul on defense going into the 2027 offseason. Several high-priced contracts are sticking out like sore thumbs on the books, and the front office has to decide which ones are worth hanging on to. None is bigger than the deal for edge rusher Montez Sweat.
Last year, head coach Ben Johnson brought in Dennis Allen as his defensive coordinator to fix a defense that has struggled the last couple of years. It has taken time to get that unit rolling, and some of the issues are still showing up in Year 2.
A big reason is personnel. The Bears spent years acquiring conservative zone players who fit Matt Eberflus’ defense. Allen plays much more man coverage with designed blitzes, and a heavy emphasis on getting home with a four-man rush. Getting those current players to fit his system has been a challenge, and Sweat’s role in that four-man rush is starting to get called into question as well.
How Montez Sweat ended up in Chicago
Back in 2023, the Bears needed a game-changing presence off the edge. DeMarcus Walker and Yannick Ngakoue weren’t providing the consistent pressure Chicago needed, and certainly weren’t long-term options.
So the Bears sent a second-round pick to the Washington Commanders at the trade deadline for Sweat, a pass rusher who was right in the middle of his prime. Chicago then turned around and gave him a four-year, $98 million deal that made him one of the top-paid edge rushers in football.
As that season continued, the results paid off. Sweat recorded six sacks in nine games after the trade and looked like exactly what the Bears were missing. In 2024, the final year under Eberflus, though, his sack number dipped to 5.5 in 16 games.
When Johnson and Allen arrived in 2025, they knew Sweat was an expensive piece of this defense they had to work with and get him back to Pro Bowl form. He responded with a bounce-back year, getting back into double digits with 10.0 sacks last season.
“This was a guy that played at a very high level,” Johnson said over the summer. “I would argue it was the best year of his career. Whether that showed up statistically or not, that’s debatable, but his ability to play the run, play the pass, I thought he did a really nice job, and hopefully it’s something we can piggyback on and carry that momentum into this year.”
The get-off improved, but the production hasn’t through the first five games
Even with that praise, the consistency wasn’t always there for Sweat last season. The Bears also wanted more from his get-off, so they made that a point of emphasis this offseason for him and the entire defensive line.
That part of the plan has worked. Get-off speed has improved across the board for Chicago’s defensive front, and Sweat ranks 15th among qualified defensive linemen with a 0.85 get-off time. The problem has been turning that into production.
Sweat has just two sacks through the first five games. His 13 pressures rank second on the team behind Dayo Odeyingbo’s 14, which sounds fine until you look across the league. Sweat ranks 42nd in the NFL in total pressures, and his 9.6 percent pass rush win rate ranks 83rd among edge rushers. According to Pro Football Focus, his 57.4 pass rush grade ranks 112th in the league.
This is coming from a player who is on the field for close to 70 percent of the defensive snaps, and more often than not, he’s been invisible for the majority of the game.
The tough loss to the Green Bay Packers was a perfect example. Jordan Love was dicing up the Bears defense, and Sweat finished the game with two pressures on 32 pass rush snaps and only one quarterback hit, while Austin Booker was the one who managed to hit home with two sacks.
A crossroads is coming up for the Bears and Montez Sweat
I’ve made the point for weeks that the Bears need a game wrecker up front, because it’s clear Sweat isn’t going to be that guy. The way this defense wants to blend their pass rush with their coverage puts a lot of weight on that four-man rush, and the options to improve the secondary just aren’t out there.
That’s why I keep pounding the table for the Bears to trade for a stopgap like Khalil Mack. At the very least, he can give you sacks when they count in a rotational role. Right now, Sweat simply isn’t doing that despite the volume of snaps he’s playing.
The price tag makes it even more frustrating. Sweat is the highest-paid defender on the team, and his contract structure makes this a make-or-break year for him. If Chicago cuts him before June 1 in the 2027 offseason, the team would save $21 million while absorbing only a $4 million dead cap charge.
Unless he picks it up over the rest of the season, the situation is trending toward a release in 2027. He hasn’t been the game-changing pass rusher the Bears expected when they traded for him in 2023 and handed him that $98 million deal. If he continues to prove he’s not that guy, Chicago can take those $21 million in savings and go after a younger impact rusher who’s worth the money and just entering his prime. Someone like Byron Young.
All this to say, the next several weeks will go a long way toward deciding Sweat’s future in Chicago.
