First round #14 Overall: Chris Williams, Tackle, Vandy
Other options: Jeff Otah, T
It’s pretty obvious to me the Bears were never going to take Rashard Mendenhall at 14 after falling in love with Matt Forte, who they knew would be there in the 2nd round. Mendenhall will have trouble NOT producing big numbers in Pittsburgh, but I don’t know how well he would have succeeded here, especially with the bears offensive line in shambles. I can’t help but believe that was the same logic the Bears used when deciding to go with a tackle, and there were three great options on the board when their turn to pick came around.
Otah and Albert are very similar players, except Albert was a guard in college who played a total of two games at tackle. If he pans out at tackle, the Chiefs stole him, and he might prove to be the best of the bunch. If he only plays guard, it’s still highly likely he’ll be an excellent player, but one generally doesn’t spend a top twenty pick on a guard.
Nevertheless, both guys are road graters, plow horses, drive blockers, call it whatever you will these are guys that excel at engaging defensive linemen and pushing them back, opening holes for running backs. Guys like that usually project to right tackle in the NFL, but it’s significantly easier to run block than it is to pass block, which is why left tackle is the most important position on the field after quarterback. They protect the quarterback’s blindside from the outside of the line, blitzing OLBs, and defensive ends and other large, nasty men that will come and eat you. Guys like Freeney, Strahan, Julius Peppers, all the premiere pass rushing specialists are usually matched up against the left tackle on the offensive line. Williams is a finesse guy, the type of guy built to play on the left side of the line and pass protect.
I am certain that Jeff Otah will play at a pro bowl level on the right side of the line in the NFL, if the Panthers try to play him on the left side, I think he might struggle. An ass kicking right tackle would improve the Bears running game immensely, and probably would have made more of an impact in 2008 than Williams, but understand this, if nothing else: GREAT right tackles are easier to find than GOOD left tackles, and Williams could be better than good on the left side. Guys like Walter Jones, Jonathan Ogden and Orlando Pace don’t hit the free agent market. The Bears see Williams in that mold. Even if he’s not quite that good, he’s worth the investment of the 14th overall pick.
Second Round #44 Overall: Matt Forte, Running Back, Tulane
Other Options: Brian Brohm, QB Louisville, Chad Henne, QB Michigan, Any other RB or any WR still on the board.
I’m sure a lot of scouting and research went into this pick, the Bears had a lot of options on the table in front of them when #44 came up, but everything else aside, this pick should indicate two very specific things:
1) The Bears are admitting made a major mistake by picking Cedric Benson
2) The Bears view Benson, and the entire running back corps, as far more detrimental to the team than the Grossman and Orton.
There were two highly rated QBs on the board, and the Bears passed on both. It’s quite possible that they didn’t think highly of either, but I find it hard to believe as Brohm is pretty much the prototypical west coast quarterback and Henne had “future Chicago Bear” written all over him. He just “feels” like a Bears QB. I know that’s not an analytical statement in any stretch of the imagination, but I can’t qualify it more than that. If you're a Bears fan, you probably understand.
Once the bears identified improving the running game as the most important option in round two, the WRs were eliminated from contention too. Sweed, Kelly, and Jackson were the best options on the board at the time, but all of those guys fell to the back end of the second round, and the Bears addressed the position just a few picks later at the top of the third.
The Awesome Sauce would be much better equipped to explain why the Bears went with Forte rather than another RB like Rutgers’ Ray Rice, Central Florida’s Jamaal Charles, Steve Slaton, Tashard Choice, etc. etc. but I do know that Forte was graded out as a third rounder by most scouting services and the Bears reached slightly, so it’s pretty clear they weren’t going to go with anybody but Forte in the 2nd.
Third Round, First Pick #70 Overall: Earl Bennett, Wide Receiver, Vandy.
Other options: Guard, Quarterback, Defensive Tackle, Safety.
I was shocked when I saw the Bears grabbing a WR with their third pick, but it doesn’t mean I wasn’t very happy. The Bears lost two wide receivers this season when they cut Moose and lost out on the bidding for Berrian, a few days before the draft, they resigned Rasheed Davis.
Moose’s replacement is obviously Marty Booker and for better or worse, Mark Bradley is slated to replace Berrian. The Bears also signed Brandon Lloyd, essentially to replace Bradley on the depth chart. I’m not saying that makes sense from the perspective of talent evaluation, but that’s how the Bears think.
One of the most important things to realize when trying to figure out who your team is going to draft is that when someone is taken as high as the third round, he’s pretty much guaranteed a spot on the roster. That means someone who’s currently occupying a roster spot is going to get cut. Last year the Bears kept six wide receivers on the roster. Moose, Bradley, Berrian, Davis, Mike Hass and Devin Hester, who… kinda counts, but not really.
Mike Hass is going to be cut, but going into the draft, I assumed they would use that roster spot for the running back they’d undoubtedly draft and go with four running backs (Draftee, Peterson, Benson, and Wolfe) meaning that there wouldn’t be room to fit another wide receiver on the team.
Adding Bennett means Benson is likely done as a Bear, or it could also mean the Bears are going to have Brandon Lloyd battle it out with
Bennett is much more of a possession receiver than a burner/big play guy. If he reaches his full potential he could be Hines Ward. He’s the guy I’ve been clamoring for the bears to add for the past three years: the kind of guy who, on 3rd and 10, will run eleven yards, and catch the ball (when I say this, I usually add “and then fall down” but I have hopes that maybe Bennett can be a little more than that.) Again I’ll defer to TAS to explain why the Bears specifically went with Bennett over one of the other WR options.
I'm going to say I'm a little disappointed the Bears didn't grab a guard here. There were two on the board I really liked in Roy Schuening and Michael McGlynn, but both of those guys ended up going way later, and Bennett could be one of the best WRs in this draft. There really weren't any safeties worth taking at this point, and I'll address quarterback at the end of this post.
Third Round, Second Pick #90 Overall: Marcus Harrison, Defensive Tackle,
Other Options: Guard, Quarterback, Safety
Going into the second day of the draft, I was confident the next to picks would be spent on a guard and a defensive tackle in some order. Here, the Bears proved me half right.
I know the knee jerk fan reaction to this draft may have been not to take a single defensive player, but DT was a major need. Defensive Tackles are so important to the bears one gap scheme and while Tommie Harris -when healthy- has been a dominant, pro bowl caliber player, the Bears have struggled to find someone to put next to him. Tank Johnson couldn’t stay out of Jail, and wasn’t very good near the end of ’06 (and completely shat himself in the Super Bowl.) Dusty Davorchek has played one half of football in two seasons. Ian Scott is a solid journeyman but nothing special.
The same can be said of Alfonso Boone and Anthony Adams. Darwin Walker looked like the perfect option and last summer it seemed as if the Bears stole him from the Bills. Unfortunately, Darwin Walker’s a giant pussy and will probably be out of the league if he doesn’t make a major change to his attitude in his next stint with the Panthers. Matt Toeaina... who knows.
Point is: Defensive Tackle was a major need, and the Bears addressed it with Harrison. He's had some issues, both with the law and with his knees, but he was a first rounder before the legal troubles. After the Tank Johnson situation I'm sure the bears have done extensive research into his character, and Harrison's issues (he was pulled over and cops found weed and extacy in the car) are nothing compared to Tank's. Hopefully he's straightened out both his life and the ligaments in his knee.
Other Options: Guard, Quarterback, Fullback.
Everything I wrote about the defensive tackle position can be applied to the safety position. Mike Brown can't stay healthy, and most of the guys the Bears have brought in to play the other position (Brown has played both Free and Strong) have been bad. Safety was a major need and the Bears appear to have addressed it here. TAS loves this guy, I haven't seen enough to judge, but he seems to be a sound tackler and can cover tight ends. Scouting reports say one of his biggest weaknesses is that he doesn't have the speed to play on an island, but fortunately safeties are almost never asked to do that in the Cover 2.
The Bears had pick number #110 and they traded back twice, first to #115 and then again to #120. They may have been outflanked. One of the best guards in the draft, Michael McGlynn, went to the Eagles at #109. It's possible that once he was off the board, there was a clump of 7 or 8 guys the Bears wanted equally, and rather than take one they decided to move back and pick up more selections. It's also possible the Dolphins (who moved up to #110) just had to have Shawn Murphy, another guard, and the deal was too good for the Bears to pass up (the same logic can be applied to the Bucs and Dre Moore) but what it definitely says is that while the Bears liked Steltz, they obviously weren't so enamored with him that it wasn't worth the risk to move back. I'm still a little disappointed the Bears didn't go guard, Roy Schuening was right there for the taking, but maybe they thought he'd be there in the 5th...
Fifth Round, First Pick, #142 Overall: Zach Bowman, Cornerback, Nebraska.
Other Options: Guard, Quarterback, Fullback.
My first "WTF" moment of the draft. With the possible exception of defensive end, there's no other position on the team that the Bears are better stocked at than Cornerback, and adding another at this point made no sense to me. Tillman and Vasher are both top-20 at their position in the NFL. McBride looks to be a legitimate player, Graham can contribute, RMJ... well he can't start, that's for sure, but he excels in the Nickel.
Bowman is a guy who didn't play much in college. Pretty sure either Jerry, or Bears Director of College Scouting Greg Gabriel, or Lovie/Babbich fell in love with this guy and just had to have him. Everything I read says he's really talented, and he's very tall. If you agree with the scouts that think he can play like a first rounder, then I guess risking a fifth round pick isn't too bad. Still, it's the definition of a luxury pick and it reeks of the Bazuin/Okwo/Williams "redshirt" picks.
Making those picks makes me itchy when the team finishes 11-5 or 13-3, but when there's so many holes to fill, I really, really don't like taking a guy who probably won't see the field this year and has such a high bust potential. Oh well, Roy Schuening's still on the board and will still be there for the Bears to grab at #158, right?
Fifth Round, Second Pick #158 Overall. Kellen Davis Tight End/Defensive End, Michigan State.
Other Options: Aww fuck.
Ooops. Schuening went one pick earlier to the Rams. Generally, I don't really expect the Bears to be targeting the same guys that I want, but Angelo had been using up about half of his five minutes with all the previous day two picks, here, he used the full five. I think he may have gotten too cute and lost out on his guy, and then was desperately trying to move down again before taking his second option.
As for Davis, the Bears parted ways with John Gilmore and were in need of another tight end. Unlike many, I fully expected them to draft one. The third tight end in the Ron Turner offense is basically just another offensive tackle. Davis is a giant and fits that mold. The fact that he played both ways in college is intriguing. I don't really have a problem with this pick, in this position, but it feels like they rolled the dice by taking Bowman and lost.
The rest of the picks, and the absence of a quarterback.
I don't know who any of these guys are, and once you get past the 5th round (hell, some would say the 3rd) the draft, which is already a total crapshoot, breaks down even further into a random lottery where your taking shots on guys hoping they can add something to your team. Once or twice a decade, somebody drafts a Tom Brady or Terrell Davis, but those are literally one in a thousand or one in fifteen hundred. If one of those late round guys becomes a starter, the picks were successful. TAS loves Marcus Monk (I always like receivers) and I've heard a lot of good things about Kirk Barton (I also like Tackles, especially tackles that can play guard) but I'm not going to claim to be able to analyze these picks, because the teams barely know themselves.
The last thing I want to address is the lack of a Quarterback. There have been a lot of rumblings in the papers, on sports talk radio, and elsewhere on the internet that the Bears draft was a failure because they didn't take a quarterback.
This is asinine, for a multitude of reasons. First of all, the Bears quarterbacking situation is bad, but it is subject to a ridiculous amount of hyperbole. In my football world, NFL QBs fall into four groupings
Tier 1) Manning and Brady
Tier 2) Romo, Palmer, Brees, Healthy McNabb, Bulger with talent around him, Favre if he plays, Hasselbeck, and, very begrudgingly, Roethlisburger
Tier 3) Guys who have shown flashes, but for whom the book is still out on, Rivers, Cutler, Gerrard, Anderson, and Eli.
Tier 4) Everyone else. And yes, for one game, I'd rather have a guy like Jon Kitna or Kurt Warner than Rex Grossman, but who knows. Quarterbacking is hard, and good ones are rare, there's a big pile of dreck in the NFL. If he were cut today, Rex Grossman could compete for the starting job in Tampa Bay, Carolina, Atlanta, San Francisco, Washington, Minnesota, Detroit, Green Bay, Oakland, Kansas City, Houston, Baltimore, Buffalo, Miami, and the Jets (but not Benny.) Orton could say the same for any of those jobs. If these guys grew on trees, everyone would have one, the Bears aren't the only team with major issues at the position.
(Anyone who says "WHAT ABOUT VINCE YOUNG" is getting punched in the balls. Shut up. Playing Madden and watching Sports Center does not give you license to talk about football with adults. Go back to your hole, you fucking cretin.)
I no longer believe that Rex Grossman is the long term answer at QB. I don't believe Orton is a viable option either, but both guys took the Bears to the playoffs. I want the Bears to get better at the position. All Bears fans want the Bears to get better at the position, but it's going to take a few years of development to get there, and, quite frankly, after Flacco and Brohm, I think most of these guys (Dickson, Johnson, Brennan, Booty, Woodson) suck. It seems the Bears agree. The Bears took fliers on two quarterbacks as undrafted free agents: Nick Hill from SIU and Caleb Heine from Colorado State. I fail to see the difference between taking a flier on someone in the 5th or 6th round and taking a chance with a UDFA, and I think writing off the entire draft because it lacks a QB is childish.
Overall, I only have two complaints about this draft. The lack of a guard in the first 5 rounds, and the lack of a true blocking fullback to replace Jason McKie. I think the Bears may have screwed up a little on the guard, but I'm not sure they have any intention of replacing McKie. I've never been more impressed with the overall strategy of a Bears draft, it seems like they went in with a very solid plan, stuck with it, and executed it to near perfection. Whether it was successful or not will take at least three years to determine, but I'm more confidant that the majority of the picks in this draft will make sense three years from now than I have been in a long time.
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