Chicago Bears first-round draft pick Dillon Thieneman holds his jersey during a news conference Friday at Halas Hall in Lake Forest, Ill. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — It’s a good thing Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson is regarded as one of the NFL’s elite offensive minds.

It’s possible his team could need to put up 30 or more points a game to match last season’s win output after the Bears went through the draft and virtually ignored one of the team’s greatest perceived weaknesses.

The Bears failed to draft a defensive end and the only defensive lineman they took was South African Jordan van den Berg of Georgia Tech in the sixth round. That came after the defense finished 27th and 28th the last two years against the run and had only 35 sacks last year.

General manager Ryan Poles said drafting late in rounds made trading up to find an edge rusher difficult, especially in the second round.

“When we made that turn into two, we had a good sense through our research that that was going to be a hot spot at the very top of two,” Poles said. “It wasn’t really possible to get up that high without giving up a ton. And at the end of the day, we would just follow the board.”

At least they came away with a potential starting safety in the first round. Oregon’s Dillon Thieneman could play alongside Coby Bryant.

“It’s rare that you see a safety as a guy that you really worry about and yet it was pretty quickly that you could turn on his tape and realize that he’s always around the football,” Johnson said.

That was it on defense until the Bears took Texas cornerback Malik Muhammad in the fourth round. In the fifth, it was defense again with Arizona State linebacker Keyshaun Elliott.

The Bears didn’t pick a defensive player on Friday. Poles drafted Iowa center Logan Jones in the second round and in the third, he took and Stanford tight end Sam Roush and LSU wide receiver Zavion Thomas.

If Chicago must rely on offense for wins, Johnson can try to make use of Thomas’ 4.28-second speed for the 40-yard dash, or three-tight end sets with Roush joining Cole Kmet and Colston Loveland.

It’s more weaponry for quarterback Caleb Williams.

“So I think it gives him a lot of versatility to work with and we can dictate some terms to the defense and make sure that we’re always attacking,” Johnson said.