AZ54

I have trouble believing Warren is a blue chip player. Seems more like top 20-25 type. He has no special traits likeBowers last year but he’s a really good player. I’m not sure Jeanty is blue chip either but he's closer to it than Warren. I won’t be surprised at all if Hampton is the first RB taken in this draft.

Agreed. That's just shockingly low ball not even an average salary and it's not like he took less money to go to a winning team in order to polish his resume.

Nice car.

For years Ryan Poles has said arm length is a factor when drafting an OT. There can be arguments about how others feel regarding arm length but the 3 OTs he's drafted as our GM fit his long-arm profile. I can't imagine he'll suddenly change for Will Campbell and I don't think he's spending a top 10 pick on Campbell to backup the IOL.

That's pretty much where I'm at. We have more needs, as do most teams, but we have to get 4 good players out of this opportunity. Although I want to come out of this draft feeling good about the depth in the trenches, however they choose to do it.

I think Walker's pass rush skills are way overrated, he's more of a blitzer than edge defender. If we draft him at 10 I'll be incredibly disappointed and I think it will signal we've returned to the Phil Emery era style of drafting. There are so many good players in this draft at higher impact positions he can draft before grabbing an off-ball LB. Walker is not as fast or agile as past years smaller elite athletes like Nolan Smith who has had just 7.5 sacks in 2 seasons in Philly. That's with a lot of good talent around him. We're not even close to that kind of Dline talent. Fix the trenches.

That's a very good list although I have not scouted all of those players. I would add the other Iowa State WR. Higgins combined with DJ and Rome would be a coverage nightmare for any team. All 3 can line up at any position. If Steve Smith is right and he goes late 1st he's not even an option but he could be there early 2nd. Even then, I think there are higher needs we should address beforehand like RB, DT, DE.

I don't particularly like Keenum so for him to compete with Bagent for #2 is fine by me. We need people to throw the ball in camp this is a much better option than any UDFA.

They gave you a C+ on Tyler Booker?

Months of work doesn't mean months of work on 1 player. These are media talking heads once they get their notes put together their job is to go out and make money talking about it. That's why they are usually late to the party on adjusting draft boards and even then a lot of that is in response to rumors, as opposed to their own re-evaluation. Even though we all disagree to some extent I find all of our combined research here on this board to be more accurate on trends that will happen in April vs the media. That is players moving up/down on draft day versus where they were slated pre-combine. One of the reasons for that is because of the debate where we force ourselves to dig deeper (as seen above) to validate one side or the other. As far as Banks goes I agree he's the best of the LT options especially if we want that in Week 1 because of Braxton's injury. All of this depends on the mystery of what our staff think about Braxton and Kiran. I listened and watched the mannerisms of Poles and Johnson as they answered questions on them this past week. My suspicion is they are content to go forward with those 2. Most telling was Poles as he talked about how he'd have a logjam of 3 players at one position for camp and he didn't seem to like that idea. Then I reminded myself it's lying season.

They'd put up a statue of you in the new stadium if you pull that off.

I’m good with that plan. But I also suspect whatever they are doing with Thuney will be kept quiet before the draft to keep everyone guessing.

I think Banks would be a much better option at 10 than any of the other 3.

George Pickens is an elite mouth, not an elite athlete.

We'll disagree. I think his physical talent is special. The mental side I haven't seen yet. He's still young and if that light goes on he'll be unstoppable.

These clips of Campbell are not an anomaly because I've found plenty of them. However, I'd be very happy if someone like NE drafted Campbell ahead of us. If we're going to add a LT it'll be Membou or Banks. Both have questions around their fit at LT. The only way for us to truly get insight into the Bears draft board as well as team belief on Braxton/Kiran is if Jeanty, Campbell, Membou, Banks, and I'll add DT Nolen are all available at 10. I think one of Membou or Campbell go before 10. Our entire draft pivots off the LT question.

Warren is a good football player but he's not worth a top 10 pick. He is nothing like Brock Bowers in the open field. Most drafts have a TE with similar skills that can be found late 1st or in 2nd round. IMO he's part of the scouting if we trade back quite a bit maybe to around 20. Laporta was a 2nd Rd pick.

Dexter had far less help next to him than Carter last season. I’d like to see what he can do with a legit starter next to him. I view Billings as a good depth rotation player.

Despite the depth of the draft 15-50 there are still legit blue chip players in this draft. Those are your real difference makers on game day if you can get one. Mason Graham is better than Kenneth Grant if for no other reason because he has better endurance and you'll get more snaps out of him on game day, especially into the 4th quarter. We're sitting at 10 and there aren't 10 blue chips in this draft but someone is going to take a non-blue chip QB ahead of us. There is usually another surprise too...ala Penix last year. Who the true blue chips are is always open for debate. One thing was clear last year: We had Rome ranked as one of them and were very happy when he fell to us. We need to see if we can get an elite talent but if we go with the trade down so someone else can get that elite talent the compensation should be set accordingly.

Membou is #1 on Kyle Long's ranking. Banks #2. Just interesting to get his perspective on players. FWIW he's iffy on Campbell.

I can see the merit behind CLE wanting to get Sanders late in the 1st Rd. Why would they trade so high all the way to #10 when they likely just need to get ahead of the Steelers who sit at 21? Plus there's no way I'd want to trade back that far. My ideal trade target is Dallas at 12 because they want to ensure they get Jeanty. I want an extra top 100 pick. Using Rich Hill trade chart: swapping 10 with 12 is 25pts. DAL 76 pick is worth 61pts. We must cover the gap of 36pts which is mostly done by swapping picks in Rds 2 and then giving them our 5th Rd pick. 39 to 44 = 18pts. 148 = 13pts That's just 31pts in exchange so it's 5pts in our favor but for the best RB talent since Saquon, Jerry takes the deal. Worst case we toss in a 6th next year to top it off. CHI gets: 12, 41, 44, 72, and 76 DAL gets: 10, 39, and 148. Now I have 5 picks in the top 100 and with Dal taking Jeanty and just SF between us and our first pick we know with very high confidence who remains on the board when we pick. I just scanned 6 mocks on NFL.com and most have SF drafting defense at 11 (edge or LB) or Will Campbell/Membou to fix LG.

Not as much of a project as you might think at first glance. Seems every NFL team has their eye on him. 1min mark

32 teams searching the entire world and spending millions for big men who can play LT well. With all that effort and money they have landed on a very select group who can do the job. Almost everyone in that group just happens to have long arms. That’s not a statistical aberration. At least 33% of the teams are searching for a better LT. If teams could get similar performance from short arm players you can bet they’d do that. Of course there are occasional statistical outliers. Betting your 10th pick that Campbell is that outlier is risky now because we just fixed the IOL. What is your fallback plan if he fails at LT?

There is a clear difference from the top 3 DTs and the next tier. It shows up very clearly in the advanced analytics. Adam Mason did a good job highlighting this on his YouTube channel. When I can get to my computer I’ll provide screenshots and a link if anyone is interested. For now I’ll just say when looking at things like pass rush pressure rate. Tackle depth etc. Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant are 1 and 3. Walter Nolen is 2nd. But they are all very close. The next best DT has a significant drop in every category but again there are several DTs clustered together in that similar performance group. Mason Graham is still the best DT but the fact he benefited from being next to Grant and Vice versa makes me think Nolen might be closer to him than initially thought.

Yes awesome draft BS is the correct statement. Which team drafting behind us is going to take Sanders ahead of the Steelers? 11. SF Purdy 12. Dal Prescott 13. Miami Tua? Doubtful I wouldn't say Sanders is an upgrade but if health issues are a concern they could pull the trigger. That's doubtful as their most likely playoff scenario near term rides on Tua's arm not a rookie. Playoffs save jobs. 14. Indy. Richardson nobody gives up on that talent for Sanders 15. ATL. Just put themselves in QB contract hell but have their future on the roster 16. AZ. Murray isn't going anywhere 17. Cin. 18. SEA. Just invested in Darnold as "the man" even though he looked like crap in the playoff game (I was there ) 19. Tampa Very happy with Baker 20. Den. Year 2 with Bo 21. PITT. If Sanders hits 10 he's theirs at 21. I would laugh if they end up with Sanders because I think that just continues their QB misfortune for many more years. In reality their fall-back option if they don't sign Rodgers is Kirk Cousins who wants a trade after the draft. Steelers are hanging onto $33mil in cap space for a reason. But I'd say that also indicates they don't want to draft a QB because regardless of trading up or staying put. They could put most of that money $15-20mil to good use elsewhere on the roster. 22 and beyond are all playoff teams set with QBs. IMO this was just click bait for Bears fans and media pundits with no logical basis whatsoever.