2022 Chicago Bears Linebackers: Better, worse, or push when compared to a year ago

We asked the Windy City Gridiron staffers to answer this question for a pre-season roundtable. Are the Chicago Bears’ 2022 position groups better, worse, or a push from the groups they had for the 2021 season?

We went position group by position group with a series of questions, and we’ve been rolling them out all week long. Let us know what you think about the linebackers in the comment section below after checking out what we had to say about them here.

Better

Aaron Leming: I’m not going to count edge rushers from last year because, in all reality, those guys were mostly playing with their hand in the dirt anyways. Roquan Smith is a stud. Nicholas Morrow should be a quality player as well. Their depth is also somewhat intriguing. Matthew Adams has looked surprisingly good, not to mention some of the younger names like Jack Sanborn and DeMarquis Gates that should factor into things at some point this year. It’s hard to get much worse than consistently relying on the corpse of Danny Trevathan or hoping Alec Ogletree can have some career resurgence.

Lester Wiltfong: Since I put the edges in with the d-line, I’m just going to count the off-ball types of linebackers here, so a returning Roquan paired with anyone would be an upgrade over what the Bears got from Danny Trevathan (bad) and Alec Ogletree (meh) in 2021.

Worse

Jack Salo: Worse. Khalil Mack is gone. They don’t have another Hall of Famer on the roster. How is it not worse?

Sam Householder: Khalil Mack is gone. Roquan is here, and Nick Morrow is solid, but they had a decent LB corps last year with Alex Ogletree.

Push

Peter Borkowski: If Roquan Smith is shipped off, the group obviously gets worse. But he’s still here... for now. Nicholas Morrow and Matt Adams could add some value and actually improve this year’s squad, but until we see that from those two, there’s not much difference in the linebacking corps from a year ago.

Josh Sunderbruch: There doesn’t seem to be any major shuffling unless management manages to further alienate Smith.

ECD: Roquan Smith’s return to the lineup solidifies this group considerably. Nicholas Morrow is young and fast and a savvy player when dropping into coverage. However, Morrow also has a bad history with injuries, and I don’t know if he’ll be a real upgrade over either Alec Ogletree or Danny Trevathan. Depth is shaky at best, even with Jack Sanborn’s recent emergence.

We put the linebacker question on Twitter, and here’s how that poll went.