LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Montez Sweat bull rushed the right tackle charged with blocking him, trying to muscle his way towards the quarterback. The Bears edge rusher was winning so a running back came over to help, but Sweat kept blazing a trail forward, then cut inside for a sack.

He knocked the ball out in the process. The Bears recovered and scored a touchdown on the next drive.

That play happened in a 24-18 victory over the L.A. Rams, all the way back in Week 4.

The Bears haven’t had a strip sack since.

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Those plays are rare in themselves, but they’re also the ultimate goal of a pass rush. The Bears haven’t been getting quite enough from their front four, which has weathered a key injury to defensive tackle Andrew Billings and some ineffectiveness as the season has progressed.

The Bears rank No. 20 overall in sacks with 31. Gervon Dexter Sr. leads the team with five sacks, and Sweat’s the only other player with more than 3.5. This defense is at its best when effective while rushing four, but they haven’t gotten home enough for satisfaction during this prolonged seven game losing streak.

They’re quarterback pressure percentage is actually pretty high at 25.8 percent and ranked sixth overall, per Pro Football Reference, but the sack totals aren’t reflective of that.

“The pressure (per) pass attempt, they’re still doing a good job there,” defensive line coach Travis Smith said. “While pressure is good, but we know sacks are the No. 1 thing. It’s not just sacks, it’s taking the ball away. When you talk about one-possession games, those plays are huge.

“It’s one thing to create pressure and force an incompletion, but we want to be the reason for change in how we turned the game, how we gave our offense another possession. It’s not just a hit or a sack, we have to take the damn ball away.”

Smith wants to see multiple sacks per game, and the Bears have had only one in three of the past five games. They had 11 combined sacks in consecutive victories over the Panthers and Jaguars but haven’t approached that production since. They had three each against the Vikings and Lions, games where they were competitive until the very end.

“If you look at how we’re grading out from a pass-rush production, we want to make sure we finish out each game, you want multiple (sacks),” Smith said. “Early in the season, there were a lot of threes, fours, threes. The last couple games, we haven’t had the same production of sack totals as we had earlier in the year. We want to make sure that we finish every game where we’re affecting the game the right way with the front four as opposed to not having those numbers.”

Sweat had a strong game against the Vikings, who the Bears play on Monday night. He had six total pressures and a sack on 26 pass rushes that day, and a similar output would help the Bears’ effort to beat their NFC North rival. Overall, though, he gets routinely chipped and double teamed due to his reputation as a top pass rusher. The Bears haven’t gotten enough off the opposite edge, though Jacob Martin has been impactful in his role. Smith has a solid rotation designed to keep his guys fresh, rolling in waves of talent.

It will be imperative that the Bears get home and impact quarterback Sam Darnold rushing four. Per Pro Football Focus, The Vikings quarterback averages 11 yards per pass attempt, with a 70-completion percentage, with 11 touchdowns and no interceptions.

“Our system is built on affecting the quarterback rushing with four, so you can play with seven in coverage,” Smith said. “That’s a crucial part of what we do, but the most important thing is stopping the run. To be able to affect them with the front four, making them one dimensional. If they’re not confident in the run, they can’t pair that with their playaction game, their boot game and their screen game, then the front four is going to come alive.

“We want to take pride in the fact that the front four, so you don’t have to dial up a five- or six-man pressure.”