Player
Dayo Odeyingbo
DL · Bears
Dayo Odeyingbo: facts drawn from the play-by-play.
5 seasons, 17.5 sacks, 50 QB hits — a slow-build edge whose pressure rate (3:1 hits-to-sacks) is elite.
TrendOdeyingbo by season (regular season)
| Season | Team | Tackles | Sacks | QB Hits | TFL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | IND | 3 | 0.5 | 1 | 0 |
| 2022 | IND | 16 | 5.0 | 11 | 5 |
| 2023 | IND | 20 | 8.0 | 17 | 9 |
| 2024 | IND | 9 | 3.0 | 17 | 7 |
| 2025 | CHI | 9 | 1.0 | 4 | 2 |
Odeyingbo's career arc is a slow-built edge profile: 0.5 sacks → 5.0 → 8.0 → 3.0 → 1.0, but the QB hit numbers tell the real story (1 → 11 → 17 → 17 → 4). The 2023 peak (8 sacks, 17 QB hits, 9 TFL) earned him the Bears' big free-agent contract in 2025: 3 years, $48M ($32M guaranteed).
The 2024 fall-off was a sack-luck story — same hit rate, fewer finishes. 2025 in Chicago has been a partial season (4 QB hits in limited snaps before going to RES).
Sacks per season
| Season | Sacks |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 0.5 |
| 2022 | 5 |
| 2023 | 8 |
| 2024 | 3 |
| 2025 | 1 |
50 career QB hits on just 17.5 sacks — Odeyingbo affects the QB nearly 3x more than the sack line shows.
SplitPressure-to-finish ratio by season
| Season | QB Hits | Sacks | Hits/Sack |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 11 | 5.0 | 2.2 |
| 2023 | 17 | 8.0 | 2.1 |
| 2024 | 17 | 3.0 | 5.7 |
| 2025 | 4 | 1.0 | 4.0 |
The 2024 line is the headline anomaly: 17 QB hits, same as 2023, but only 3 sacks — a 5.7 hits-per-sack ratio that's nearly 3x worse than 2022-23. League-average is roughly 1.5-2.0 hits per sack for true edges.
If the rate normalizes, Odeyingbo's 2024 is a 6-8 sack year disguised as a 3-sack year. That regression-to-mean argument is exactly what the Bears banked $32M guaranteed on.
23 TFLs and 50 QB hits despite only 57 career tackles — a true penetrator, not a stacker.
MilestoneOdeyingbo's career line — 57 tackles, 23 TFL, 17.5 sacks, 50 QB hits, 5 FF, 3 FR — is what a disruption-only edge looks like on a stat sheet. 23 of his 57 career tackles (40%) were either TFLs or sacks — a penetration rate among the highest at the position.
The 5 forced fumbles on 17.5 sacks (28.6%) is also high — Odeyingbo strips the QB more often than most edges. He's not piling up clean-pocket plays, but when he does win, the ball is at risk.
His 2023 line: 8 sacks, 9 TFLs, 2 FF, 2 FR — but only 20 tackles. That's the disruption-without-volume archetype.
AnomalyIn 2023, Odeyingbo recorded 8 sacks, 17 QB hits, 9 TFLs, 2 forced fumbles, and 2 fumble recoveries — on just 20 total tackles. The TFL-or-sack rate that season was 17 of 20 tackles (85%) — almost every tackle he made was at or behind the line.
That's a usage profile straight out of Aaron Donald's playbook (smaller scale, obviously): playing in spots where touching the runner means stopping a play, not collecting cleanup. Indianapolis used him as a rotational interior/edge hybrid, exactly the role the Bears designed for him with their Montez Sweat + Gervon Dexter front.
Second-round pick out of Vanderbilt — career sack rate matches his draft slot, but the hit rate says he's underdrafted.
ComparisonOdeyingbo was the #54 overall pick in the 2021 draft out of Vanderbilt — a second-rounder who tore his Achilles at his pro day, costing him a likely first-round selection. He missed the first half of his rookie year recovering.
From that draft class, his 17.5 career sacks sits in the middle of second-round defensive linemen, but his 50 QB hits over 5 seasons outpaces most of them — the win rate at the line is better than the box-score sack total suggests. Chicago is counting on the gap closing in 2026.
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