Leonard Floyd has no sacks and 1 QB hit; is it time for the Bears to worry?

Defensive coordinator Vic Fangio hasn’t avoided the topic when talking to outside linebacker Leonard Floyd this week.

“It doesn’t have the no-hitter mentality, where you don’t talk about it,” Fangio said.

Floyd, the Bears’ first-round pick in 2016, has no sacks and one quarterback hit all -season.

On the hit, Floyd lined up across from Buccaneers guard Caleb Benenoch’s right shoulder. When the ball was snapped, outside linebacker Khalil Mack twisted inside, drawing Benenoch’s attention on a double team and leaving Floyd to run free. He hit quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick as he threw an incompletion on third-and-10.

Another hit came in Miami when Floyd smacked the helmet of quarterback Brock Osweiler. But the ensuing roughing-the-passer penalty wiped out the stat.

In 269 snaps, that’s it. Zero sacks and one hit.

Bears coach Matt Nagy talked to Floyd a few times this week. His message: Stop thinking about getting shut out.

“Here’s a guy that, everyone puts the pressure on certain positions in regards to sacks, and you start pressing,” Nagy said Friday. “When you press, you don’t get sacks. When you just let it loose and don’t press and cut it loose, then that’s when they come. And they normally come in bunches, too.”

It has been an inauspicious start to a crucial year for Floyd’s career arc. This offseason, the Bears must decide whether to exercise the fifth-year option in Floyd’s rookie contract, which would keep him in Chicago through 2020.

Is it time, then, to worry about whether Floyd will ever be the player the Bears had in mind when they drafted him?

Floyd, who didn’t speak to the media Thursday or Friday despite an interview request, was supposed to benefit from the double teams on Mack. That hasn’t happened, though there have been mitigating circumstances. Floyd had surgery Aug. 19 to fix a broken right hand and missed the rest of the preseason. He played in the Bears’ opener with a club that has since evolved into a small brace.

The result: Through six games, Pro Football Focus ranks him 69th among edge player in the NFL.

“I just want him to use what he’s done his whole career,” Nagy said. “Which is just getting after the quarterback in a fast manner, using his moves, his speed, his leverage. If he does that, the sacks will come.”

In his last 16 games, though, Floyd has totaled only 4½ sacks and 13 quarterback hits.

His presence on the field is better than the alternative. Floyd played only 10 games last year before his season was cut short when he hurt two ligaments in his right knee. He missed four games the year before with two scary concussions.

Fangio dropped Floyd into pass coverage a whopping 13 times last week, part of a failed strategy to make Tom Brady dink-and-dunk the Bears to death. That hurt Floyd’s pass-rush opportunities, as did the fact the Patriots had only one third-and-seven play the entire game.

“He could be better, obviously, like a lot of them,” Fangio said. “And us as coaches can be, too.”

There’s no secret to improving, he said.

“Work in practice, study himself on film, study the opponents he’s going against,” Fangio said. “And just keep sawing wood.”

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The sacks will come, his teammates said, when he stops fretting about them.

“You can’t worry,” defensive end Akiem Hicks said. “You can’t frustrate yourself . . . you just gotta stay on your game, continue to rush like a madman and cause as much disruption as you can.

“There’s so many things that have to fall into place in order for that magic moment of a sack to happen. So you gotta be focused and continue to be in the right spots. And when it comes, it comes.”