AZ54

I like Harmon but he's very similar to Dexter and can't really bend so he's easy to avoid. Aside from that he's great at getting pressure up the middle. That would have been very welcome on our team. Kaleb Johnson is a good pick at RB. Jack Sawyer offers very little in pass rush, he's just going to be a rotational guy in the NFL with no starter potential IMO. That's ok as a 4th Rd pick but I think his name and school increased his theoretical value. The Bears have 3 players who will be contributing on day 1. We have future starting TE1 in Loveland with clear Pro Bowl potential. A likely starting WR3 this year in Burton (not much competition) with potential to become WR2 in the future and replace DJ Moore. Both positions were clear needs and both were good value picks. Ozzy Trapilo just feels like a backup swing OT or maybe a future starting RT. He's not a starting LT for sure. From a draft standpoint this one feels like a reach to me. However I do like the depth and competition we now have on the Oline. This reach I think confirms the end of the Braxton Jones era I just don't know the expiration date. I suspect the team is quietly hoping Kiran can win the job this offseason and Trapilo is just an insurance policy with the last ditch effort being to move Wright to the left side. I hope we never see Wright move. Shemar Turner I like quite a lot. We needed more depth at DT and pressure up the middle. He definitely will contribute this year and has potential to be a good starter down the road. With Grady and Shemar the energy level on the defensive front is going way up this year. Lastly...Pittsburgh has no QB.

I think there’sa link in Jacob Infantes story on Windy City gridiron.

Seems more like a Dennis Allen pick because after the draft Poles said DA wanted more speed at LB and this guy was on their list of targets.

DA said pressure on the QB comes from inside not the edges a few weeks before the draft. After I heard that I figured we'd be drafting someone who was more 3-tech than a 2-down run stuffer like Alfred Collins. Plus that pick might come at the expense of an edge rusher although I still wish we added to the DE ranks as well. Poles also said DA wanted more speed in the LB corps and so he got that in Rd 4.

After watching his introductory press conference this guy wasn't the most mature player in his early college career. I'm reading between the lines of what he said but IMO he struggled because he wasn't putting in the work either on the field or in the classroom. I think he's learned a lot in the last year (mostly his words) but I think he's going to get a big shock when he first lines up to cover DJ or Rome. I see him on the practice squad in year 1.

Hopefully yes that is true. When the only film you can find is the guy jumping out of a pool it doesn't work.

I think he's competition for Roschon for sure. I'm not that enamored with Roschon. I think Roschon has better receiving skills but he's not "good" in that category and while it's reportedly not seen on film it's possible Monangai showed similar skills in his workouts. He sure seems to be better at pass pro than Roschon. It's impossible to know what the team was looking for in a RB or rather who they wanted / where. Poles said they let the board fall to them and it sure looks that way from the outside. I also wonder if the team still has some hopes for Wheeler as a contributor. Which is my way of saying that A) they didn't view RB as an urgent need and b) once their top RBs were off the board they weren't going to worry about it at all. It was interesting to hear the new HC say he was impressed that the draft team worked the board so well and didn't fall prey to filling a need. Does Ben Johnson truly have a long term view on the roster? It's hard to say because the offense got a lot of focus early in this draft. We'll see what that looks like on the field.

Poles said way back in Feb Al Harris told him about Zah as good press corner prospect for the 4th or 5th round.

Legit depth player at the RB position and what little I've seen of him so far (below), I love how he pass protects. https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2025/4/26/24418298/chicago-bears-nfl-draft-kyle-monangai-scouting-report

Exactly what I said... the move TE gets all the attention while the elite running game the Lions were known for ...nobody knows who that TE was.

The fact is our roster is much improved over the last 3 years. All top 4 picks would have been labeled as day 1 starters 3 years ago. Maybe not Loveland but he'd have been very close to starting over the version of Kmet that was entering the 2022 season. The RT, DT, WR... all 3 of those would have been starters in Week 1. I think the only likely day 1 starter position we could have drafted would have been a RB (several options) or LT had we chosen Banks. Even my guys like Grant, Williams, or Nolen would have been rotational players this year. I've waited years to get to this point and I'm not bothered at all by the fact these 4 picks have to go earn their playing time. Braxton Jones is going to be working out like never before. With this many RBs drafted I feel like there will be a decent FA option popping up soon...in a buyers market.

Future OC?

I doubt a 21 year old TE comes in and starts day 1 in Ben Johnson's reportedly complex scheme. He will contribute from day 1 for sure but TEs need to be in meetings with Oline and WRs. It usually takes dual role TEs a couple seasons to get it all down. Loveland's stats will get all the media and fan attention.

Been offline for a few hours. Saw this new thread and thought we made some massive trade up giving up lots of future picks .

Why Burden fell ... but I think he is in a good place to get the coaching he needs.

Poles admitted they had modeled 3 OTs going in the top 9 so he wasn't surprised by the fact it went down that way. My interpretation of this is if the team really felt LT was a critical need they'd have traded up somewhere to make that happen sooner. Either into the top 9 or back into Rd 1 early Rd 2 for someone like Simmons or Ersery. I suspect that means they really like Kiran's potential to be the starter and we drafted a swing OT in Rd 2 to compete with Jones/Kiran. I could be wrong too if they think Kiran is the backup IOL. We'll know soon when we get reports out of OTAs.

Unless there is something from next year's draft we haven't yet seen but yeah this doesn't seem good for us.

Crazy how intertwined the drafts of these two teams are this year.

We drafted two players that turned down more NIL money to stay with their current teams. Shemar Turner and Luther Burden. Burden took a pay cut to enable his team to sign other players.

I like this pick. Adds more pass rush but he’s also good at stopping the run. His ability to move out to the edge is a plus. Dennis Allen can move around Dayo, Sweat, Jarret, and now Stewart. 3rd and long is going to be interesting.

After last years circus act with DJ let’s hope Rome takes him under his wing.

Not true. My inference is that Ryan Poles has to justify his job to the owner who approved him to pay a HC that much money. There should be an expectation from the owners to see results on the offense this year with all that investment. The timeline on defense can stretch a bit longer.

The problem is Ryan Poles has not put a winning product on the football field. Technically neither have I. Until he changes that there is no data to prove he’s any better than the virtual fantasy GMs here on this board.

We can all find rankings with all sorts of different values. Loveland here was 7 overall on Draft Network. I"m sure I can find him as far back as 20 or 25 but on average I'd say he was at least around 15 across the board. Might have been higher than that in the final rankings just prior to the draft. https://www.thedraftnetwork.com/list/nfl-draft-2025-player-rankings ....12 here on CBS https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/prospect-rankings/ ....Brugler had Warren at 10 and Loveland at 11. https://www.chargers.com/news/dane-brugler-top-100-draft-prospects "Two common names in recent mock drafts — Penn State's Tyler Warren and Michigan's Colston Loveland — are right near one another on the Big Board. Warren came in at No. 10 overall while Loveland was at No. 11." I checked a few other places and almost everywhere I look his value fit very close to where we drafted him. I wanted to build the trenches and didn't want a TE at 10 so I never really considered him, or Warren, unless we traded back a bit. Seeing him work out of the slot effectively gives me hope we got a good move TE and filled a clear need on the offense. I'm coming to grips with it. The fact we took him ahead of the popular pick in Warren shows me our talent evaluators and new coaches can make good decisions together. Or maybe I should be worried they agreed with my TE evaluation?

What Ben Johnson sees in Loveland