Leonard Floyd goes from Bears 1st-round pick to Rams champ

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Leonard Floyd was a first-round draft pick bust for the Bears, but one team’s trash ended up being a Super Bowl champion’s treasure. Floyd went from a cut casualty in Chicago, to coming up with a key sack on the biggest stage.

The Rams defense tied a Super Bowl record with seven sacks on Sunday night. It’s a mark that tied the 2015 Broncos, 1975 Steelers and the 1985 Bears. While Aaron Donald and Von Miller will command most of the postgame spotlight (and deservedly so), Floyd did his part too. He chipped in his one sack on a 3rd-and-6 play near the tail end of the first half, which forced a Bengals punt. It also stopped any threat of the Bengals going “make it, take it,” which proved pivotal given Cincinnati's hot start to the third quarter. Considering the Rams only won by three points, each stop was critical for Los Angeles, too.

Besides the sack, Floyd registered five tackles, including one tackle for a loss

But Floyd would’ve never made it to LA if the Bears hadn’t decided to part ways with him. When the team traded up to draft Floyd at No. 9 overall in 2016, they were hoping to get a speedy outside linebacker to boost the defense’s pass rush. Initially, it looked like a slam dunk pick, as Floyd generated seven sacks and one fumble recovery touchdown in just 12 games. He developed in some areas, like run defense, but after his rookie campaign, Floyd’s sack numbers dropped. He only dropped the quarterback 11.5 times in his next three seasons combined.

So Ryan Pace opted to cut ties with Floyd, releasing the former first-rounder less than a year after picking up his fifth-year option. Instead of paying Floyd just over $13 million for the last year of his rookie deal, Pace opted to sign Robert Quinn to a mammoth five-year, $70 million deal. After Quinn’s abysmal 2020 season, the decision to move on from Floyd in favor of Quinn looked like one of the worst of Pace’s career. But Quinn set a new Bears record with 18.5 sacks in 2021, easing the sting of that move.

Floyd isn’t the first player to flop in Chicago and become a champion elsewhere, either. Shea McClellin went from a first-round Bears bust to Super Bowl winner with the Patriots in their thrilling comeback win against the Falcons following the 2016 season.

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