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Courtney Cronin, ESPN Staff Writer
CHICAGO — The Bears added to their pass rush Friday, sending a 2025 sixth-round pick to the Seahawks in exchange for linebacker Darrell Taylor.
Taylor, a 2020 second-round pick, sat out his rookie season in Seattle after undergoing offseason surgery for a leg fracture. 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 the New England Patriots in exchange for Matthew Judon but chose not to further its pursuit after not being able to iron out the parameters of an extension with the 32-year-old outside linebacker, who was ultimately traded to the Atlanta Falcons.
Taylor was set to make $3.116 million in base salary this season, an amount the Seahawks did not want to pay for a situational edge rusher — likely the extent of Taylor’s role given his history of struggling to defend the run.
The Seahawks did not tender Taylor as a restricted free agent in March, instead signing him to a one-year, $3.136 million deal that included a $20,000 signing bonus.
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% of the team’s defensive snaps.
While Eberflus praised the efforts of Chicago’s defensive line throughout training camp, the Bears still sought to improve their 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 Book [rookie Austin Booker] and [DeMarcus] Walk[er] and Dom[inique Robinson], all those guys that are in that other spot and those guys have different skill sets 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.”
This is the second trade that Seahawks general manager John Schneider has made in as many days. On Thursday, he sent cornerback Michael Jackson to the Carolina Panthers for rookie inside linebacker Michael Barrett.
The Seahawks had a little under $8.5 million in cap space after Thursday’s trade with Carolina. Trading Taylor leaves only his $20,000 signing bonus now counting on their cap as dead money.
ESPN’s Brady Henderson contributed to this report.