Thursday, March 28, 2024

Meet the AAF Standout Who Can Ease the Bears’ Biggest Issue

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Most of the focus for Chicago Bears fans lately has centered around their edge rusher position. This isn’t a surprise. After the team added Ha Ha Clinton-Dix and Buster Skrine, most of the concerns on that side of the ball are settled. Outside linebacker is the only one that remains and with each passing hour, people grow more restless.

“Top heavy” would be the best way to describe the situation. Khalil Mack? Awesome. Leonard Floyd? Good. Isaiah Irving and Kylie Fitts? Ummm. That isn’t what one would call an ideal situation. Irving and Fitts did nothing last year to show either is capable of filling that all-important #3 spot. Aaron Lynch is gone as is Sam Acho.

Yet the Bears have done nothing for the past two days since signing Clinton-Dix. What is the holdup? A number of things. The most likely being that teams are waiting to see what happens with former Chiefs Pro Bowler Justin Houston. He’s by far the biggest fish left on the market and people need to see what he’ll get paid so they have an idea of what the demands will be from others.

However, unrestricted free agency isn’t the only avenue open to the Bears anymore. Nor is the upcoming draft. If they are seeking needed depth at pass rusher, there is another pool they can dip into.

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First Chicago Bears AAF move could be for edge rusher Karter Schult

The Alliance of American Football continues to progress through its first official season as a professional league. The results are expectedly mixed. There has been some good games and some atrocious ones. If nothing else, it’s serving one key purpose. It gives former NFL players a chance to hone their craft and build their tape library for a possible second chance in the big league.

One who is taking big advantage of this is Karter Schult. Most casual fans don’t know him. He was a former undrafted free agent of the Cleveland Browns in 2017. Coming from Northern Iowa, he was panned for being somewhat undersized, understrength, and not fast enough. Yet there was one thing teams couldn’t deny about him.

He found a way to the quarterback.

The Bears should know. He had 1.5 sacks of Mitch Trubisky in the final preseason game that year. It wasn’t enough to get him a job though. After spending the 2018 preseason in Carolina, Schult decided to take a chance by joining the AAF as part of their Salt Lake Stallions franchise.

Over the past two months, he has become the most productive pass rusher in the league. He leads in every major category including sacks (7), hits (14), and pressures (38) on the QB. All of that in just six games. This may surprise some, but it shouldn’t. Schult was unstoppable during his final two years at Northern Iowa.

He had 31 sacks and 47 tackles for a loss in 2015 and 2016. The young man plays with a fire in his belly and demonstrates a keen understanding of how to be a true pass rusher. He’s only 25-years old too. This could be somebody the Bears should look into as a depth option for 2019.

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