Bears get Seahawks LB Taylor to boost pass rush

CHICAGO -- The Chicago Bears added to their pass rush on Friday, sending a 2025 sixth round pick to the Seattle Seahawks in exchange for linebacker Darrell Taylor.

Taylor, a 2020 second-round pick, sat out his rookie season in Seattle after undergoing an offseason surgery. Since the 2021 season, the edge rusher has totaled 21.5 sacks in 49 games with 13 starts.

"It's exciting for us to get (Taylor)," Bears coach Matt Eberflus said on 670 The Score in Chicago. "He's got sack production, a really good pass rusher. He fits our scheme in terms of his effort, his style, his disposition."

The Bears' quest to find an edge rusher to pair with Pro Bowler Montez Sweat was detailed in the latest episode of HBO's "Hard Knocks". Chicago had planned to send a third-round pick to New England in exchange for Matthew Judon but chose not to further its pursuit upon not being able to iron out the parameters of an extension with the 32-year-old outside linebacker prior to executing the trade.

According to "Hard Knocks" narrator Liev Schreiber, "Poles has met New England's asking price of a third-round pick. But unless Judon agrees to a contract extension with the Bears, Chicago won't make the deal."

In 2023, Taylor appeared in all 17 games for Seattle and logged five starts. He recorded 5.5 sacks, seven tackles for loss, and eight quarterback hits while playing 44 percent of the team's defensive snaps.

While coach Matt Eberflus praised the efforts of Chicago's defensive line throughout training camp, the Bears still sought to improve its ability to pressure quarterbacks after finishing with the lowest sack percentage (4.64%) and second-fewest sacks (30) last season.

"I feel really good about where we are in terms of with [rookie Austin Booker] Book and [DeMarcus] Walk[er] and Dom[inique Robinson], all those guys that are in that other spot and those guys have different skillsets that they bring to the table and those guys play really hard," Eberflus said this week. "And the first thing in defensive line play is having a great motor and those guys have really improved and they've done a good job with that."