Part 7 of an 11-part review of the 2017 Bears season.

Injuries were a prevailing factor in too many areas for the Bears in 2017, and no area on defense was hit harder than outside linebacker.

The Bears wound up using five starters at outside linebacker and one was one-time free-agent prize Lamarr Houston, who was part of final cuts in September but wound up getting brought back Nov. 29 because of a pressing need as four of the seven at the position eventually wound up on injured reserve.

It’s a credit to defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, who oversaw the position group, that the unit remained as productive as it was. Leonard Floyd led the position with 4 1/2 sacks, which can’t be what the Bears hoped for, but outside linebackers combined for 18 1/2 of the team’s 42 sacks.

Fangio was forced to get creative at times in his pressure package when he lost the players needed to consistently get home off the edge. Once example was the occasional use of dime packages, not something Fangio turns to a whole lot, in which he would use one of the defensive backs (Sherrick McManis and DeAndre Houston-Carson filled this role) to blitz. In a perfect world, the Bears would have a 250-pound athlete with length and the ability to bend around the edge in that role, but sometimes you’ve got to make do with what you have and what the Bears were dealing with was a shortage of bodies.

Willie Young (Oct. 10), Floyd (Nov. 23), Isaiah Irving (Dec. 2) and Pernell McPhee (Dec. 20) all finished the season on injured reserve, and the position figures to get a makeover moving forward.

Roll call: Leonard Floyd (signed through 2019 with team option for 2020), Sam Acho (unrestricted free agent), Pernell McPhee (signed through 2019), Lamarr Houston (unrestricted free agent), Willie Young (signed through 2018), Isaiah Irving (signed through 2018), Howard Jones (signed through 2018).

2018 salary-cap figures: Floyd $4,304,417, McPhee $8.075 million, Young $5.4 million, Irving $555,000, Jones $705,000.

2017 season review: Not unlike during portions of his rookie year, the Bears were occasionally conflicted with what to do with the Ferrari in their pass rush. Floyd, the ninth overall pick in 2016, is easily the most gifted natural pass rusher on the roster with the speed, get-off at the snap, length and ability to bend around the edge and close the distance to the quarterback. But he was also the only outside linebacker on the roster athletic enough to comfortably drop into space and carry coverage. According to Pro Football Focus, Floyd was in coverage for 68 of the 582 snaps he was on the field in 2017, meaning 11.7 percent of the time. That’s the exact same percentage of snaps he spent in coverage as a rookie. While 68 isn’t a high number, those are 68 opportunities to hunt down the quarterback that are taken away, and general manager Ryan Pace didn’t trade up for Floyd to watch him cover tight ends or try to handle wide receivers on crossing routes or backs coming out of the backfield. Project that total over an entire season and Floyd would have been in coverage for roughly 109 snaps. He was drafted to become a premier edge rusher and after two seasons, Floyd hasn’t yet achieved that stature. That’s not to say he cannot get there, but I think it’s fair to say he was still dealing with missing considerable camp and practice time as a rookie. From a matchup standpoint, Floyd was the best option in coverage and far better than McPhee and Young. Floyd finished with 34 tackles to rank 10th on the defense, and one of the real pluses to his season is he wasn’t sidelined with a concussion. That had to be a concern for the Bears after Floyd revealed last summer that the late-season concussion he suffered in his rookie year affected him for an extended period. However, his season was truncated by injury again. During the Week 10 meeting with the Lions at Soldier Field, Floyd suffered injuries to the MCL and PCL in his right knee during a collision with cornerback Kyle Fuller. That led to surgery, and when we last saw Floyd, on locker cleanout day after the season ended, he was in a brace and using crutches. The team doesn’t believe the injury will hinder Floyd’s preparation for next season. The good news is Floyd had not missed a practice this season and through the first nine games he had been on the field for 90 percent of the snaps. After the injury, Floyd’s snap total wound up ranking second for the position behind only Acho (639), and they were the only outside linebackers to be on the field for more than 37 percent of the action.

How did every Bears player fare this season? And what is their contract status? A position-by-position look at the 2017 roster. (Colleen Kane, Rich Campbell) (Colleen Kane, Rich Campbell)

Acho, who was back with the Bears on a one-year contract for the third consecutive season, went from being a projected core special teams player to the guy Fangio wound up trusting the most. Acho was the only outside linebacker to compete in all 16 games, and his 12 starts were also tops for the position. He finished ninth on the roster with 40 tackles and added three sacks and a forced fumble. His playing time shot up to 639 snaps (60.4 percent), 140 more than he had the previous season. Acho was more active in the pass rush and was solid against the run. Acho was a replacement level player but was sound in the defense and with what he was asked to do and, therefore, was indispensable for Fangio as the injuries piled up.

McPhee, the premier free agent in Pace’s first offseason in 2015, did what he could to remain on the field for 13 games with five starts before he was shut down with a shoulder injury. The recurring issue for McPhee has been knee injuries, and believe it or not he has missed only 10 games over the last two seasons. The Bears appreciate the edge that McPhee brings to the huddle, but he has been reduced to a part-time player and had more than 35 snaps in only four games while he had fewer than 20 snaps in three of the games he appeared in. McPhee was a little clunky when he came out of Mississippi State and when he played for the Ravens but was able to play at a high level because of his strength, toughness and instincts. He’s far clunkier now because of the knee issues — he underwent microfracture surgery after the 2015 season — and the investment probably cannot be justified moving forward. McPhee made 21 tackles with four sacks, five tackles for a loss and two passes defended in 385 snaps (36.4 percent).