The Leonard Floyd experiment is over

The Chicago Bears coaches tried their best. They did everything in their power to insist that with a little more tweaking Leonard Floyd could blossom into the player everybody had hoped he’d be. A legitimate edge rusher who could produce 10 or more sacks in a season. Everything was set up for him to do that this year. He was fully healthy and playing across from Khalil Mack. That meant guaranteed one-on-one blocking. A pass rusher’s dream.

For the briefest of instances, it looked like they were right. Floyd exploded out of the gates for two sacks on opening night against the Green Bay Packers. People were so excited. This was it. The time had finally come. Four games later, they’ve been too distracted by other problems to notice the horrible truth. Floyd hasn’t changed at all. He’s still the hot and cold rusher who doesn’t flash near enough he’s always been.

For the season, the 27-year old has just nine total pressures on the quarterback and zero sacks in the past four games. Khalil Mack, despite rampant double teams and game plans designed to stop him, has 4.5 sacks and 26 pressures this year. If that weren’t humbling enough, Roy Robertson-Harris has 2.5 sacks and nine pressures this season and he’s played 108 fewer snaps on defense than Floyd has. Considering Robertson-Harris isn’t a former top 10 pick, how can this not be eye-opening?

Leonard Floyd isn’t bad but he is replaceable

Now this is not to say Floyd is a bad football player. He isn’t. To be sure he’s not playing up to his lofty draft status but he’s still a good run defender and effective when dropping into coverage. The problem is that isn’t why the Bears drafted him and isn’t why they exercised the 5th-year option on his rookie contract. They did that in hopes that he was starting to finally figure out how to become a quality edge rusher. It hasn’t happened and that doesn’t figure to change down the stretch with some top-quality offensive lines like New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Dallas looming.

GM Ryan Pace must come to terms with the truth. Floyd isn’t who he thought he’d be. There were some flashes but some guys just don’t have “it.” Right now the Bears are slated to pay him $13.22 million in 2020. They need to think seriously about canceling that plan. Floyd is not worth that amount of money at this point. Trading him is possible but cutting him would not garner any penalties and it’s not hard to think Pace could make better use of that money at other positions.

By pulling the plug and also cutting ties with older veterans like Kyle Long and Prince Amukamara, the Bears would rake in over $29 million in salary cap space. Together with the expected rollover of the extra cap from this year, they could be looking at something north of $40+ million in space by the start of free agency next offseason. That is a ton of flexibility to retool the roster. If they happen to get a draft pick thrown in the mix? All the better.