Bears: Mack, Fuller, Jackson, Cohen Named To NFL All-Pro Team
Another perk of a winning NFL team made itself more than welcome to the Chicago Bears Friday as the team settles into its re-established role as league darlings.
This time its the Associated Press All-Pro team that's giving it up to the Bears by selecting four New Monsters to its 2018 First Team, which was announced earlier today.
In order of their previous selections to the All-Pro team, the Bears represented this year are Khalil Mack (edge rusher), Kyle Fuller (cornerback), Eddie Jackson (safety) and Tarik Cohen (punt returner) -- that's another way of saying that Mack is the only one of the Bears foursome who's been named to the team before. Mack was previously selected twice as an Oakland Raider, including after his Defensive Player of the Year campaign in 2016.
Mack's level of play unarguably raised the entire Bears' defense, which hasn't had close to this kind of representation on the All-Pro team since 2012 when Charles Tillman made the first team and Julius Peppers and Tim Jennings made the second team.
2012 was also the last time the Bears had four All-Pros in all, 2006 -- aka, the last Chicago Super Bowl team -- featured the last quartet of first-team All-Pros (Brian Urlacher, Olin Kreutz, Devin Hester and Robbie Gould).
Whereas the '06 class touched on all three phases of the Bears' game and gave a lot of props to their special teams, this year's class doesn't include any offensive players and is dominated by the defense, which shouldn't surprise anyone.
Mack's credentials this season included 12.5 sacks, 11 tackles-for-loss, six forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries, four pass break-ups and one interception in spite of missing his first two games of his career; Jackson collected six interceptions in the regular season, with touchdown returns of 27 yards against the Vikings and 41 against the Lions along with a 65-yard fumble recovered for a touchdown against the Bills.
Fuller had seven interceptions and 21 pass break-ups this season while Cohen averaged 12.5 yards on punt returns, fourth best in the NFL.
All four players were also part of the five selections the team had to the 2019 Pro Bowl along with defensive tackle Akiem Hicks.
Go through the entire All-Pro team here.