Why Leonard Floyd Struggled The Past Two Years (and Will Break Out in 2018)

Leonard Floyd has all the hopes and dreams of the defense on his shoulders this year. Why? In essence, he and he alone is responsible for driving the Chicago Bears edge rush. Who else will do it? Aaron Lynch is already dealing with hamstring problems. Isaiah Irving is a former undrafted player with limited experience. Kylie Fitts is a rookie sixth rounder with a loaded background of health issues. Floyd is their only proven guy. Even he isn't immune to concern either. He's suffered two-straight years of his season being cut short by injuries. People are anxiously wondering if he'll ever turn out to be the double digit sack producer many still feel he can be. Or rather has to be now. Is it possible? Yes, it is. The problem isn't that Floyd is missing some physical trait that's holding him back. It's more that he still hasn't mastered the art of pass rushing. He's gotten better. Don't get that twisted, but he's still lagging behind in one critical facet. He isn't consistent enough at finishing. For those unfamiliar, to "finish" means not only to beat your blocker on a rush but to get to the quarterback for a sack. Missed sacks are often a result of a rusher not being disciplined in his approach. The numbers bear this out with Floyd.

Leonard Floyd can pressure consistently but not sack

Last season offered an interesting juxtaposition. According to Matt Harmon of Yahoo Fantasy, Floyd had the eighth-best pressure rate among edge rushers in the NFL last season. Out of 247 total pass rush snaps, he got heat on the quarterback 13.8% of the time or 18 pressures in total. That's not bad for somebody who only played 10 games. The problem is he wasn't efficient enough with the pressures he had. Just five of those 18 pressures resulted in him getting to the quarterback for a sack. By contrast, rookie Carl Lawson in Cincinnati had a lesser rate at 13.3% in 338 snaps with 8.5 sacks. So despite having just seven more total pressures on the season, he had four more sacks.

The hard part to accept is that Floyd may have actually gotten worse from his rookie season. He had 22 pressures in 12 games that year with seven sacks. Four more pressures total from this year but 2.5 more sacks. This means his efficiency rate went down. What happened? It wasn't experienced and there was no sign of conditioning issues. The only thing left was coaching.

Changes at position coach have likely hampered his progress

Clint Hurtt was Floyd's outside linebackers coach in 2016, a man well-respected for his prowess at that job. Lamarr Houston also had a career-best 8.5 sacks that year. However, Hurtt left for New York during the 2017 offseason. Rather than hire a replacement, Vic Fangio elected to run the outside linebackers himself. Unfortunately, that doesn't always work. For those who don't remember, Lovie Smith tried to do that in 2009, running the team and the defense simultaneously. The defense went from 16th in points allowed to 21st. It's hard to focus on two jobs at once. Jeff Hughes of Da Bears Blog even got some criticism for the Bears defensive staff over how they've used Floyd from a former pro personnel executive.

“Vic is a good coach but that staff is not doing a great job with Floyd. All of his success is based on athleticism but he still plays undisciplined. But if he stays healthy he can still be a double-digit sack guy. Do they have another relevant rush guy?”

This would explain why the Bears handed full coaching duties to Brandon Staley this offseason, removing the extra work from Fangio's plate. Despite having mostly a college background, Staley is already earning a reputation among young pass rushers for his knowledge and coaching prowess. It seems to be impacting Floyd too, who's been having a tremendous start to training camp.

Yes, practices are different than games but it's apparent the violent hands and explosion off the snap are more consistent than years past. If he carries that along with better discipline in his angles, the trajectory between his number of pressures and his number of sacks will begin to intersect. That's what the Bears are aiming for.