2018 NFL Draft Day Two Open Thread
Selecting Roquan Smith with the eighth pick of the first round was an absolute no-brainer for Ryan Pace. Taking my favorite player in the draft? Icing on the cake.
What did others have to say about the pick? It’s being universally praised. Two things I have heard from a source inside the Bears.
(1) The team was genuinely surprised Roquan became available. There was an assumption by Pace & Co. that Smith wasn’t going to make it by Indianapolis and the team had begun zeroing in on playmaking DB Minkah Fitzpatrick.
(2) Last three first round picks? Georgia. North Carolina. Georgia. The Bears lean heavily on their southeastern scouts and we should all take note.
“I know Vic and his staff will maximize this player, and that’s what’s exciting about it,” Pace said after the first round concluded. “Vic’s been around a lot of good linebacker play, and this just adds to the great linebacker play the Bears have had as well.”
Pace called Fangio’s input “very important” on Smith.
“This is obviously one of Vic’s top players, [and] one of Matt’s top players, my top player,” Pace said. “We might have 10, 12, 15 grades on a guy, and it’s so comforting for me when I can look at that bandwidth of grades and they’re all right next to each other.
“That’s definitely how Roquan was, so it makes the pick really easy when we’re all unified like that.”
Smith fits Fangio’s mold for inside linebackers. At 6-1, 236 pounds, he’s built similarly to former 49ers star Patrick Willis (6-1, 240). And that’s just the start.
Smith’s instincts, range, speed and tenacity, and his take-charge demeanor off the field, also fuel comparisons to Willis, who was a tone-setting, five-time All-Pro in the middle of Fangio’s elite 49ers defenses. Pace said the Smith has “outstanding intangibles.”
From my column last week:
The only player in the 2018 draft I’m hoping ends up in a Chicago Bears uniform. This kid is special.
This space will be updated with information and commentary regarding tonight’s first-round selection by the Chicago Bears just minutes after that selection is made. This will include opinion from two well-respected league guys.
(1) I asked a current NFL general manager what position he thinks is underrated in this draft. “Wide receiver,” he told me. “Don’t be surprised if once the seal gets broken on the position there’s a mini-run.” The belief is there’s no star wideout in this draft but there are at least a half dozen “70 catch guys” (his phrase) in the mix.
(2) Based on some criticism I’ve read, I went back and looked at a few Quenton Nelson games. I didn’t need to. He’s exceptional. But one thing stood out to me: Mike McGlinchey is going to be drafted earlier than many expect.
(3) I asked a former high-ranking NFL personnel man which player will influence the drama Thursday night most significantly. He didn’t even hesitate. It was Lamar Jackson. “I have friends who think he’s the best quarterback in this class. I have other friends who don’t think he has any chance to play quarterback in the league.”
(4) The Saquon Barkley love makes sense. But why does nobody bring up Penn State’s horrendous track record of sending running backs into the NFL. Blair Thomas. Ki-Jana Carter. Larry Johnson. Curtis Enis! All early first-rounders. At some point, it’s not coincidence. Is this a reason not to draft Barkley? No. But is it reason for pause? Absolutely.
(5) Asked both of the aforementioned personnel men what the Bears need? The GM stumbled around and gave me nothing. The other was dead-on. “They need defensive backs that make big plays when they get their hands on the football. And there will be several available when they pick. That’s where I expect Ryan to target and I KNOW that’s what Vic wants.”
There is now so much draft shit available it’s hard to make sense of any of it. Hell, even here there’s more than in the previous ten years combined thanks to the efforts of Data and Andrew. So I won’t pepper this yearly column with too much detail. Instead, here’s who I love in this year’s draft. If you look back historically, these guys usually tend to be pretty good in the league.
He’s battling a sports hernia, limiting his ability to do much for the pro scouts in draft lead-up, but the Aurora native should be healthy for the start of the 2018 season. This kid can play at the next level. He’s not going to be a star but he’s going to be a steady, tough contributor. He’s a poor man’s Heath Miller. And he’s going to fall too far in this draft.
Simply love this player and this kid, as I wrote in a Saturday Scout column in November. If Pace is as enamored by athleticism as many believe, how can he not be enamored with a decathlete?
This is another player featured in a Saturday Scout piece last season.
I’m a firm believer that good football players don’t need excuses. Josh Allen and Sam Darnold have excuse makers littered throughout the football media but ultimately both just weren’t good enough in college.
Washington was great. 226 catches in four years. Nearly 4500 yards. 39 touchdowns. And he got better every season. Hopefully Washington ends up on a team with a strong-armed QB who will be able to utilize his ability to completely destroy the back-end of a secondary.
Side note: I’ve Tweeted several times that I don’t like the quarterbacks in this draft. That’s only semi-true. I like Mason Rudolph and Luke Falk as mid-rounders who’ll contribute in the league for a long time.
A few years ago I wrote that Aaron Donald was far-and-away the best player in the 2014 draft. That was based purely on his football playing, nothing else. Not cones or sprinting in spandex or his work on the pommel horse. When one watched him play, one saw an NFL star.
Nelson is exactly the same player on the other side of the line. If Chris Ballard lets him by the Colts at #6 Thursday night, he’s insane. (But don’t worry, his friends in the press will still celebrate him as a genius.) If Ballard passes, Andrew Luck should sucker punch him in the building Friday morning.
Nelson is the best player in this draft.
The only player in the 2018 draft I’m hoping ends up in a Chicago Bears uniform. This kid is special.
(1) The Bears close out in Minnesota for the third consecutive season. How is this even possible? It’s understood the league wants division rivalries to keep that weekend relevant but did nobody on Park Avenue think, “You know, maybe we should rotate which of these teams is home on the final Sunday?”
The Bears have every right to formally complain. If they do, they’ll end up home to finish the 2019 campaign. That’s sadly how this league works. (And apparently how the Bears ended up in Green Bay to open THIS season.)
(2) Opening with two consecutive primetime games is a personal nightmare. The first Sunday of NFL football is my favorite day of the year. It’s my Christmas. The whole routine of it – sleep like 2 hours, early rise, pot of coffee, listen to Rick Pearson on WGN, debate subway vs. Lyft, get to Josie Woods for 10:30 AM, first beer at 11 AM…etc. – is gone. I’ve been watching games with the same crew (more or less) for 18 years. And now I won’t see them until Week 3. No team should open with two primetime contests.
(3) As for the Thanksgiving game in Detroit, that’s fine. The early Thanksgiving game is far less annoying than playing the evening game, which requires discipline I simply don’t possess.
(4) Week 5 bye week is brutal. Every GM, coach and player will tell you the ideal bye week is somewhere in the weeks 8-10 range, right in the middle of the season. If it’s going to be earlier than that, you’d want it Week 7, giving the PUP players an extra week to get healthy. This bye week means if the Bears are going to make a run into January, it ain’t going to be physically easy.
(5) Here’s what I would say about the first 8 games: the Bears will be significant underdogs at the Packers and home to the Patriots. The other six games are total coin flips. If the Bears can get to their back-to-back November home games against the Lions and Vikings at 4-4 or better, they have a chance to play football in January.
There are things I’m rooting for when it comes to the schedule release. I want at Buffalo in the first six weeks. I want Miami/Arizona late in the season, when playing golf is no longer an option for those of us in New York City. I don’t want a primetime game the week in November when I’ll be in Europe.
But none of that has anything to do with the actual Chicago Bears. These three things do.
From Patrick Finley and the Sun-Times – who now finally have a readable website thanks to the fine folks at WordPress:
If Pace is able to sign Goldman to a contract extension before the final year of his rookie deal — the Bears are trying — he could have two stellar talents locked up for the next four years, when Hicks’ deal expires.
The Bears, of course, have three starting defensive line positions.
Their interest in drafting someone to develop alongside Hicks and Goldman depends on how vital they view that third spot to be. The Bears typically rotate defensive linemen, lessening the need for an every-down end opposite Hicks, who played about 85 percent of the team’s snaps last year. In nickel and dime packages, Bears defensive coordinator Vic Fangio often replaces an end with a linebacker in hopes of creating pass-rush mismatches.
The Bears never settled on an end to start alongside Hicks last year. Jonathan Bullard, who Pace drafted in the third round in 2016, played 40 percent of the Bears’ defensive snaps, veteran Mitch Unrein 37 percent and former undrafted free agent Roy Robertson-Harris 20 percent. At the end of the season, Pace singled out Bullard and Robertson-Harris as players who made significant leaps during the year.
Perhaps as a result, the Bears didn’t add anyone to replace Unrein when he signed a three-year, $10.5 million deal with the Buccaneers last month.
My personal belief is the Bears don’t put a tremendous value in this third defensive lineman position. They will continue to get production there from low-risk veterans and late draft picks.
Also, I have it on good authority that both Ryan Pace and Vic Fangio believe Jon Bullard can be a top player in the league. Not just good. Top. Has he shown that potential? No. At least not in the game tape. But they believe they’ve seen flashes.
The draft is coming and the mocks are rolling in. Here are some projections for the Bears’ first-round selection. As has been proven in the Ryan Pace era, the chances of these being correct are not good.
Scott Wright, NFLDraftCountdown projects Quenton Nelson:
The Bears wisely noted a weak crop of wide receivers in the draft and instead used free agency to provide young quarterback Mitchell Trubisky with some weapons to throw to. Now they are free to shore up the offensive line with Nelson, who I feel is the best prospect in this class, regardless of position. It also doesn’t hurt that Nelson’s college offensive line coach Harry Hiestand now holds the same position in the Windy City.
Nelson is a mountain of a man with outstanding strength and power, but also surprising athletic and nimble when pulling and blocking in space. What really sets Nelson apart though is his aggressiveness, nasty on-field temperament and desire to finish blocks. I don’t throw my “Elite” grade around lightly and this year Nelson and Penn St. RB Saquon Barkley were the only two prospects to earn that label. In fact, Nelson is the best true offensive guard prospect I’ve seen in my two decades of covering the NFL Draft.
If Nelson is gone or they want to go in another direction, keep an eye on Virginia Tech OLB Tremaine Edmunds. The young, athletic, rangy ‘backer has actually been compared to Bears great Brian Urlacher due to his well-rounded skill set and upside.
