The Chicago Bears are making a major training camp signing.
The team has agreed to a one-year, $10.5 million deal with defensive end Yannick Ngakoue, one of the top remaining free agents on the board, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Ngakoue appeared to confirm the news himself on social media.
Ngakoue is coming off a season with the Indianapolis Colts in which he posted 29 total tackles, eight tackles for loss and 9.5 sacks. He has carved out a strong career as a pass-rushing specialist since he entered the league in 2016, a span of time in which he is tied for the seventh-most sacks in the NFL with 65, but has become something of a journeyman lately.
Since being granted a trade from the Jacksonville Jaguars to the Minnesota Vikings in 2020, the 28-year-old has bounced from the Vikings to the Baltimore Ravens to the Las Vegas Raiders to the Colts and now to the Bears. His skills are still valuable, but not enough for a team to keep him around long term.
With the Bears, Ngakoue is joining a team that ranked dead last in the NFL last season in sacks with 20. They hadn’t done much to improve on the edge this offseason, so Ngakoue appears to be a huge win for a team trying to make a jump from its 3-14 record last year.
It might not take long for Ngakoue to learn the Bears playbook either, as Bears head coach Matt Eberflus was the Colts’ defensive coordinator the season before Ngakoue arrived in Indianapolis. They didn’t overlap there, but the two teams should have plenty of system overlap.