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I don’t watch LSU, but it seems like their WR room was weird. A TE caught the most TDs and the leading wide receiver only had 53 receptions, then Zavion had 41 but a higher per catch average, and then two other WRs with 33 and 31 catches.

I think that was their thinking after Thieneman slipped to them. If he didn't slip, would the Bears have taken Lomu at LT and felt better. Roush may have been the plan all along because of his value for blocking and to help any deficiencies at LT. Watching them run 13 personal is going to be fun but will hurt having the talented WRs we have.

4.5% drop rate, shows he has pretty good hands. He has a small route tree, so hoping he is a fast learner and the Bears can broaden those limitations Watching that Miss St clip, makes me feel he was the teams focal point or Wr1 and by the looks at LSU, he was maybe wr3/gadget.

I have to say, in his LSU highlights he seemed like a bit of a body catcher, which concerned me, but going back to his Mississippi State days, he looks like more of a hands catcher and a bit of a better receiver. Not sure what’s up with that but he seems to have the skills you want. Also, in looking at his stats, I see he was a very successful kick returner in 2023 and 2024, but in 2025 he didn’t really return kicks and mostly just handled some punt returns. Seems strange for a guy you draft for his return ability. Anyone know what’s up with that? [EDIT - In looking further, Thomas was the primary punt returner, but Barion Brown, who the Saints drafted in the sixth round, was the main kick returner. I think he actually caught more balls than Thomas, but was a bit slower and lighter.] LSUZavion Thomas

Yeah those AI summary videos are all over the place and really boring.

Don't look at a forty time when White was coming off an injury and still rehabbing. Reportedly he hit 24mph in one game. However, I just watched some highlights of him and he is more of a long speed guy and doesn't have the same quick burst Zavion has, nor the quick agility in his cuts and he does it at 190lbs. Among 170lb WRs, Tank Dell a couple years back had elite quickness in his cuts that made him so hard to cover. We drafted the better player and I doubt Squirrel ever amounts to much more than a practice squad guy.

In no way am I complaining about the Van Ness pick.

I hadn't even thought about supporting the LT with TE blocking. That's a legit concern and adds value to drafting the best blocking TE in the draft where we did.

I would not rule out Cam Jordan joining this team. A trade for Kayvon Thibedeaux wouldn't totally surprise me either but his production has been horrible the last two seasons. They've been trying to dump him off on another team for a year now with no takers, which is telling. Among those two I'd strongly prefer Cam Jordan for a year. Having him mentor Booker and Turner (if he's still a DE) would be beneficial too. I'd feel good with that 4-man rotation.

Roush was reported by those covering the draft as having 7 drops his last year in college. SEVEN with far fewer targets than a #1 TE in the NFL would receive during the course of a season. And make no mistake. Just because we have an All-Pro-caliber TE in Loveland doesn't mean Kmet, when used properly, isn't still a Pro Bowl-caliber TE. When you run the number of 12- and 13-person formations that BJ calls, having a TE 1a & 1b is not a luxury; it is a necessity, if you want to have a Super Bowl caliber offense. I hope the salary cap Gods allow us to keep Kmet a Bear!

Highly doubtful in this complex offense. Aside from the extra demands from Ben's offense, rookie TEs always struggle to get up to speed in the NFL because there is so much to learn. Coleston Loveland was still learning things late into the season, and still missing assignments even into the playoffs. I won't mind if you're correct since it's means the offense will be in a great position. The good thing here is that Roush is a legit receiving target and has far better YAC potential than Smythe (and Kmet). For sure by the second half of the season I expect Roush to be getting more targets than Smythe was seeing, and on running routes not the stop here and turn around college plays. Then teams won't be able to key off him in terms of knowing who is blocking and who is running a route. Ben said it in the press conference when asked about how this helps the offense since we already had two good TEs: "We can go heavy or we can spread it out, however we choose to attack a defense." I think now even the easy plays around the LOS become more productive because these 3 TEs can do so much in space. Jet sweeps and WR screens with Zavion on the field? Not that we have to do a lot of it, more so that we can do it depending on how a defense is playing us. We're going to be a very difficult offense to prepare for each week because of all the options. We just need Caleb to take the next step in quicker reads and quicker accurate releases to the right player. After seeing the progress across last season I think he'll get there.

and a guy like Ndame Tucker, who led college football with 14.5 sacks last year, goes undrafted. I dont understand it either. The only thing I can guess, is that they expect Booker to ascend and think that Turner is a better draft pick than anyone that was available this year. Still, theres got to be another move coming, doesnt there? Maybe they want to give their young guys a chance to gain experience, and then depending on where we are we trade for an Edge at the trade deadline, if we are in the playoff hunt, or wait for next year. But damn. If this team had a pass rush, we'd be Superbowl contenders. WTF.

Kmet is a better receiver than Roush, wider catch radius, better hands, etc. Roush is better at blocking and running and is more dangerous with the ball in his hands. I doubt Roush could make that game-tying TD catch Kmet made in the playoffs. However, after seeing how many snaps a nearly useless Dylan Smythe got last year it's very clear Ben wants 3 good TEs. That said I can see a future where we move on from Kmet to free up money. Which means I won't be surprised if we draft another TE next year.

Now that the 2026 draft has concluded and knowing the roster and contracts, this is how our 2027 draft could look going off positions more than names/players. DE and DT should be priority, but picking late again could be a problem finding the right scheme fits. The LT projects more as a G in NFL, but having a versatile player who could play LT helps. Not much S depth behind Bryant, Thieneman, and Hicks. I think they address that in FA this year but drafting longer term depth is needed.

After years of complaining that the Bears weren’t addressing the O-line enough, now that they actually have a good one I’m not going to argue that they are going after O-line too aggressively.

It’s fair I guess if you wanted edge in the first (though I would prefer Thieneman over any of the edges available) and there’s maybe an argument they should have traded up in the second, but by the time they got to the Bears pick int the second, I’m not exactly crestfallen we didn’t get any of the remaining edges. Maybe you could make an argument for DDS (we’ll see how he fares in Green Bay), but keep in mind that pretty much no edge taken between rounds 3 and 7 last year had more than three sacks (and that was Josiah Stewart who was more of a LB). so expecting some great impact from a rookie edge is pretty unlikely. StatMuseRookie Sacks Leaders 2025 | StatMuseJames Pearce Jr. had the most sacks by a rookie in 2025, with 10.5 sacks.

I dont care where they got there players (pick value) as long as they are good players. Most people use the big boards pundits put out to judge player value. After the actual draft you can see a lot of evaluations were off. A good example is the safety EMW. Some had him in the first round or early second. Almost every team passed him up a couple of times before he was taken. Taking Logan Jones that high was not in any drafts so does that mean we went to high, or they were to low? Logan Jones is a Tyler Linderbaum clone and Tyler was picked by the Ravens at pick 25. If Logan is that good, late second is right where he should have been taken.

The AI commentary cracked me up. All over the place and repeating itself many times.

IMO comparing this pool video to Gilbert years ago is taking it out of context. Gilbert literally had almost no highlights to his production at a small school. He was drafted purely on a traits projection. Here we're taking a 6yr old video of a high school kid who was already focused on improving his athletic ability. At 240lbs he was still growing and had no idea what he'd grow into as a player. Watching his press conference, and seeing his work out numbers, it's clear his work ethic is still there to this day. He played in the ACC against good programs last year: Clemson, Georgia, Duke, BC, NC State, Pitt, and BYU and had production in those games. That's a lot better level of competition than San Jose St. Given the level of competition having an average depth of tackle of -0.11 is pretty good.

The value charts always assume a linear value to players and picks. Poles said they had excluded a lot more players this year and were very focused on finding "football guys". That narrow focus means there are going to be some big cliffs and valleys in players on their board throughout the process. Using OC as the example, the Bears led the workout for Sam Hecht. They said they were in on as many OC workouts via Roushar as they could be. They had a very good idea on which OCs fit their scheme best and that increases the grade and value of Logan Jones by a lot in their eyes. While the rest of the NFL draft world has him graded similarly to Hecht and maybe a couple others. They went and got their guy locked in early and that doesn't bother me as long as the evaluation is right. At the point of the trade down I saw your points analysis and agreed it was clear Poles well selling low to get the additional pick. As of today we lost on the trade value charts but if Malik Muhammad turns into a good starting CB2 for us then I'd say we won the value battle finding that talent in the 4th. Plus adding a good depth LB with starting potential on a pick we never had. Given the way the draft happened and this tight fit on evals makes me wonder why we avoided guys like Dani Dennis-Sutton. It's the late 3rd Rd pick on a WR where all this meshes into a WTF moment. Certainly if any of those Edge or DT prospects were one of Poles players we'd have grabbed them in the 3rd. Darrell Jackson Jr., Kaleb Proctor, Gracen Halton. In my mind, and in my mocks, several of those players were logical choices for us at that pick.

Uhh, it actually is...🤔🤌🤌🤌

Sam Roush at 6'7 270# will be playing a big role helping the LT. I've seen experts say that they had him in the 2nd. Now WR Thomas, I thought was a round early but who knows, Witgen who the Steelers drafted round 4 is a similiar player that I was taking round 7. Thomas has more juice and maybe the Bears have Hester 2.0 We watched those DT/DEs go later than we took them in simulators, so I feel the league told us how they feel about their readiness to see playing time this season. The Bears roster is pretty full on the dline, so they are going with those guys and will emphasize better coaching to get what they need. The Bears selections fit their needs, not ours. Believe me, I wanted a DE and DT. The kid we took in the 6th basically outperformed Woods who went in the first and you know he will be a full effort player.

I agree 100%. It was the only pick I’m still pretty unsure about. I’m sure they have a plan, but I would rather a more well rounded receiver than what seem like a speed/gadget/return guy. Skyler Bell or Bryce Lance seemed like better picks at WR with some return ability over Thomas. But I guess we’ll see.

So I wanted to see who was more correct, the consensus on players (big boards) or where teams selected them. I have more work to do with this, but here is a quick snapshot. I looked at 2023 and 2024, just rounds 1-3, and identified the 3 lowest producing players based on their draft slot, the busts. Then I compared that to where the big board had them. In 11 out of 18 the team drafted the player higher than the consensus, making bad picks into busts. The consensus only had 5 players higher than they were drafted that turned out to be busts. So the consensus is over 2x more accurate than the teams own evaluations. Meaning that if all these teams stuck to the big board, they would've had 2x better odds at hitting on a player. 2023 Van Ness @ 13 (27th) - TEAM REALLY WRONG Anudike-Uzomah @ 32 (32nd) - BOTH WRONG Murphy @ 28 (17th) - CONSENSUS REALLY WRONG 2nd Round Ojulari @ 41 (57th) - TEAM REALLY WRONG Cam Smith @ 51 (41st) - CONSENSUS REALLY WRONG Foskey @ 40 (73rd) - TEAM REALLY WRONG 3rd Round Hooker @ 68 (47th) - CONSENSUS REALLY WRONG Stromberg @ 97 (N/A) - TEAM REALLY WRONG Ika @ 98 (88th) - CONSENSUS REALLY WRONG 2024 McCarthy @ 10 (28th) - TEAM REALLY WRONG Chop Robinson @ 21 (40th) - TEAM REALLY WRONG Darius Robinson @ 27 (61st) - TEAM REALLY WRONG Polk @ 37 (48th) - TEAM REALLY WRONG Sinnot @ 53 (105th) - TEAM REALLY WRONG Rakestraw @ 61 (46th) - CONSENSUS REALLY WRONG Trice @74 (98th) - TEAM REALLY WRONG Reiman @82 (202nd) - HOLY SHIT TEAM REALLY WRONG Lloyd @88 (84th) - BOTH WRONG

My hope and theory is the Bears have something in place to address an upgrade at Edge, but it won't come until after June 1st, whether that is with a free agent or thru a trade. That is my only hope, otherwise this feels like a very weak offseason where they side-graded because of the losses at C and S. So the additions of Bradury and Jones are a wash with Dalman. Bryant and Thieneman are an upgrade at Safety, but if the DLine can't stop the run or rush the passer, how effective will the secondary even be? Then on offense, you traded your WR1 in hopes that your other guys will elevate, but ultimately all the other moves were rotational or backup in nature. So technically, the offense is worse on paper going into 2026 and you still have questions at LT.