The Chicago Bears signed Robert Quinn to a five-year, $70 million contract last offseason following a dominant performance, where he was among the league’s best pass rushers.
While Chicago believed they were getting that some player when they inked him to that massive deal, Quinn’s 2020 season was an utter disappointment considering the Bears paid him to be a dominant force on defense.
But according to Next Gen Stats, Quinn was actually more productive than the box score indicated. Quinn was a top-10 disruptor in 2020, despite what his two-sack total indicated.
Next Gen Stat’s metric of disruptions is the combined total of hurries, pressures or sacks, with only one counting per play.
Quinn had a disruption rate of 15% and 46 total disruptions. Although, as Bears fans know well, Quinn’s sack total was disappointing. He had a sack rate of 0.7% with just two sacks on the season.
Quinn was a top-three disruptor in 2019, which is why the Bears were willing to sign him to a five-year, $70 million deal in 2020. Good news for the Bears: He’s still a top-10 disruptor at 31 years old. Quinn has eye-popping speed off the edge, posting an average get-off of 0.8 seconds or less in each of the last five seasons. He finished with the fourth-fastest average time to hurry (any time a player gets within 1.5 yards of a QB from snap to pass) in 2020 at 2.75 seconds.
His sack total, however, is not what you’d expect for a player making $14 million per year. Quinn tied for the fewest sacks of any player who has posted a 12 percent or better pressure rate and 300-plus pass rushes in a single season during the Next Gen Stats era (since 2016), meaning his sack total should be higher than it was in 2020. That’s what Bears fans hope will happen in 2021. I know it might be a surprise to see Quinn included here, but keep in mind that sacks are not an all-encompassing stat. Quinn was still making a difference even if he wasn’t getting home often in 2020.
While Quinn proved to be effective in pressuring the quarterback, the Bears are still going to need him to do a better job of getting after the quarterback in 2021.
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