The basis for the Chicago Bears signing defensive end Dayo Odeyingbo was his versatility.
"I think one of the things that he does exceptionally well is, I think he moves inside and passing downs and rushes really well from the interior," defensive coordinator Dennis Allen said. "I do think we have some options there and certainly, that's like one of the main points of pass rush.
"Everybody talks about these speed rushers off the edge, but really it's about the interior pocket pressure that you have to have. That allows guys like Montez Sweat to be able to have some success coming off the edge."
The more versatile the better is the idea.
According to a study from Pro Football Focus' Ben Linsey, the Bears should be set up well in the future for becoming more dominant defensively because of how their linemen are able to move positions.
In an article about "entropy" on the line, or randomness of position, Linsey sees this as extremely valuable and determined the Bears had an entropy rate last year in the top half of the league.
"We won’t get into the weeds of the math here, but a higher entropy value correlates with a player who lines up in many spots (defensive line technique and side of the line, in this case) with a relatively even usage split," Linsey wrote.
The plus for this is being able to do defensively what Ben Johnson does offensively and that's create mismatches.
The Bears were 13th in the league at being able to line up in different places on the line last year before they even had acquired Odeyingbo, and he rated 19th individually among all defensive linemen for versatility.
There seems to be some question here about the actual work they did for this article because their own numbers say tackle Gervon Dexter lined up 215 of his 611 snaps at a position other than his regular 3-technique, including 144 at end, but wasn't even on their chart for the top 20. Yet, Odeyingbo played 580 of his 742 snaps outside the tackle and made the top 20.
Either way, this bodes well for the Bears if there is anything to this theory about it benefiting defensive movement because these two aren't the only linemen capable of sliding up and down the line.
The Bears drafted Shemar Turner and he is roughly the same size as Odeyingbo. He had his best college seasons playing end even though the Bears have him at tackle. Allen said they planned on using him at tackle but Turner did slide outside for several snaps during OTAs when media was able to watch practice.
Add those with Montez Sweat, who has moved from left side defensive end to right side occasionally, and the Bears defense should be able to create plenty of mismatches.
Allen's scheme is one utilizing movement by linemen and some of the players even commented—Sweat and defensive tackle Andrew Billings in particular—on how involved all of this movement is.
Even Grady Jarrett has the ability to move. The Falcons sometimes moved him out of the 3-technique effectively.
So while the Bears look to be even better in this way for 2025, one thing they seem to keep running into in the NFC North is other teams are step ahead of them.
All three other teams finished ahead of them for line "entropy," including Minnesota, which was No. 1 in the league.
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