Chicago Bears: 5 Reasons they’re NFC North sleepers in 2018

3. Improvements on defense

When talking about improvements of the Bears defense heading into the 2018 season, the conversation clearly begins with their first-round pick in this past draft, linebacker Roquan Smith out of Georgia. The former Bulldog is the ideal linebacker for the modern NFL with the speed, instincts and athleticism to do everything asked of him in the middle of the field.

Chicago’s defense has lacked a presence the caliber of Smith for some time now, thus making his selection an easy one to come by in the top 10 of the 2018 draft. Now that he’s there, he should be not just a Day 1 starter on the Bears defense, but also a player that could help tie everything around him together.

Outside of Smith, the biggest improvements on defense may simply be getting everyone healthy. The embodiment of this idea is edge rusher Leonard Floyd, whose brief career has been marred with one injury after another to this point. When healthy though, he can be a force getting off the edge and into opposing backfields.

The rest of the defense, however, is solid in its own right and showed flashes of that last season. Chicago has a solid stable of cornerbacks and good depth there as well. Eddie Goldman, Akiem Hicks and Co. have proven to be forceful up front on the line. What’s more, Eddie Jackson and Adrian Amos appear to be the answers at safety. Thus, Smith helps tie this whole thing together and the results should speak for themselves.