2018 Draft Prospects

[IronMike84]

I don't doubt that somebody we don't expect could try to come up for a QB in this draft. So many teams have just let their future fester at the QB position. Fact of the matter is:
Tom Brady - 19th season
Drew Brees - 18th season
Ben Roethlisberger - 15th season
Philip Rivers - 15th Season

With Eli to boot. So are all of those teams just going to drive the car until it runs out of gas, or are any of them going to hit up the gas station?

[Epyon]

Shoutout to a guy named Stunner on the other main Bears forums I frequent for finding/seeing this first

Thrilled to see he's in consideration for us (presumably on some kind of trade down).

Also... since Vea was mentioned, I must once again link my favorite clip of the draft season:

Watch that WR's eyes as Vea comes bulldozing in on punt coverage. He saw the train coming, and he knew he was standing on the tracks.

Edited April 7, 2018 by Epyon

[JAF-N72EX]

14 hours ago, beardown3231 said:

Kentavius Street tore his ACL a few days ago, and Nick Nelson tore his meniscus today/yesterday. Ugh. I feel for both kids.

BTW, Walter Football has updated the Bears prospect meeting list:

• Mike Boone, RB, Cincinnati (PRO)
• Brett Toth, OT, Army (EW)
• Equanimeous St. Brown, WR, Notre Dame (PRI)
• Deon Cain, WR, Clemson (COM)
• Bradley Chubb, DE, N.C. State (PRI)
• Simmie Cobbs Jr., WR, Indiana (WOR)
• James Daniels, C, Iowa (PRI)
• Jaylen Dunlap, CB, Illinois (PRI)
• Minkah Fitzpatrick^, S, Alabama (WOR, PRI)
• Jarvion Franklin, RB, Western Michigan (PRI)
• Matthew Gono, G, Wesley (PRI)
• Mike Hughes, CB, Central Florida (PRI)
• Hayden Hurst, TE, South Carolina (COM)
• Joshua Jackson, CB, Iowa (PRI)
• Lamar Jackson, QB, Louisville (COM)
• Elijah Marks, WR, Northern Arizona (PRI)
• Jamar McGloster, OT, Syracuse (EW)
• Tarvarius Moore, FS, Southern Mississippi (PRI)
• Isaiah Oliver, CB, Colorado (PRI)
• Brandon Parker, OT, North Carolina A&T (COM)
• DeMornay Pierson-El, WR, Nebraska (PRO)
• Kyle Queiro, FS, Northwestern (WOR)
• Jeremy Reaves, S, South Alabama (PRI)
• Malik Reaves, CB, Villanova (PRI)
• Calvin Ridley^, WR, Alabama (COM, PRO)
• Brandon Shed^, WR, Hobart (PRO, PRI)
• Roquan Smith, OLB/ILB, Georgia (PRI)
• Courtland Sutton, WR, SMU (COM)
• Jonah Trinnaman^, WR, Brigham Young (PRO, PRI)
• Denzel Ward^, CB, Ohio State (COM, PRI)
• Damon Webb, S, Ohio State (EW

FWIW, the only person on this same list last year was Trubisky. They did not meet with Cohen, Shaheen, Jackson, or Morgan. In 2016, they met with Floyd, RRH, and Whitehair but did not meet with Bullard, Kwiakoski, Howard, Bush, Hall, or Houston-Carson.

 

Probably won't always be the case, but they always meet with their 1st round pick at least once in the Pace era. They did the same with White. Unless something changes (and I'm sure they will since we still have 20 days, the Bears wouldn't have met with Davenport, Nelson, Landry, James, or Edmunds.

So they met with 5 safeties, 6 CB's, 1 LB, 1 DE, 5 OL's, 2 RB's, 9 WR's and 1 TE.

I wonder how much off this is a direct reflection on how they view the team from a need standpoint and how much is just a pre-draft strategy ploy?

 

[TB 1]

16 minutes ago, JustAnotherFan said:

So they met with 5 safeties, 6 CB's, 1 LB, 1 DE, 5 OL's, 2 RB's, 9 WR's and 1 TE.

I wonder how much off this is a direct reflection on how they view the team from a need standpoint and how much is just a pre-draft strategy ploy?

 

The last few years the Bears have drafted players that they didn't meet. The Bears better have a defense heavy draft as they need 2 OLB's and 1 ILB. They have also lost Unrein so they need to draft 1 big lineman. This defense will regress if they don't address these positions. As of right now who rushes the passer off the edge on this team? Both DT and Kwiatkoski missed over 5 games last year. Who plays ILB this year when out? Timu who is not an NFL player.

[Superman(DH23)]

5 hours ago, JustAnotherFan said:

So they met with 5 safeties, 6 CB's, 1 LB, 1 DE, 5 OL's, 2 RB's, 9 WR's and 1 TE.

I wonder how much off this is a direct reflection on how they view the team from a need standpoint and how much is just a pre-draft strategy ploy?

 

Go back and subtract all the players with (com) next to their name bc thats just the 10 min combine interview.  Also realize that this isnt a comprehensive list.  Nobody knew they met with MT10 last year until after the draft.

[blkwdw13]

4 hours ago, Superman(DH23) said:

Go back and subtract all the players with (com) next to their name bc thats just the 10 min combine interview.  Also realize that this isnt a comprehensive list.  Nobody knew they met with MT10 last year until after the draft.

Wasn't it pretty much the same with Floyd when they brought him in a few days before the draft.

[pigsooie5]

14 hours ago, Epyon said:

Shoutout to a guy named Stunner on the other main Bears forums I frequent for finding/seeing this first

Thrilled to see he's in consideration for us (presumably on some kind of trade down).

Also... since Vea was mentioned, I must once again link my favorite clip of the draft season:

Watch that WR's eyes as Vea comes bulldozing in on punt coverage. He saw the train coming, and he knew he was standing on the tracks.

No thank you to a guy who will play 30-40% of the defensive snaps. Value just isn’t there at #8. I’m also a bit concerned that your “favorite” play of a “top 8 prospect” is on special teams. 

[Epyon]

47 minutes ago, pigsooie5 said:

No thank you to a guy who will play 30-40% of the defensive snaps. Value just isn’t there at #8. I’m also a bit concerned that your “favorite” play of a “top 8 prospect” is on special teams. 

I did say that Vea would be presumably on a trade down.... Regardless, the 30-40% snaps comment... You do know he graded out as one of the best PASS RUSHERS for DL this season right? I think he'd end up on the field much more than you think, especially since it would also help us reduce both Goldman and Hick's respective workloads, as well as give us a nigh impossible to run against front 3.

Finally, since you seem to want to be a wet blanket, I'd also point out that the point/beauty/joy of that Vea special teams play apparently went over your head... It's my favorite play this draft season because of the novelty involved in seeing a 350 lb Nose Tackle not just on punt coverage, but actually running down a 185lb WR in the open field.... Seeing the panic in the WR's eyes as he attempts to dodge that train, and then even better tries stop all that momentum with just a stiffarm is icing on the cake.

[pigsooie5]

Regardless of his pass rush one of Goldman or Vea would be on the sideline for 60-70% of the snaps. I find that hard value regardless of a trade down, although I wouldn’t be terribly upset. 

Wet blanket? Get over yourself. 

[Epyon]

27 minutes ago, pigsooie5 said:

Regardless of his pass rush one of Goldman or Vea would be on the sideline for 60-70% of the snaps

Vea played DE as much as he did NT in college, fyi. The idea that either him or Goldman would be sidelined for that much of the game is questionable at best..

Last season's snap counts by %:

Hicks-DE 84.97%

Goldman-NT 57.56%

RRH-DE: 20.04%

Bullard-DE: 41.40%

Jenkins-NT: 10.30%

Coward-NT: 0.95%

Unrein-DE: 36.77%

 

 

So you look at that list, and you can play Vea at DE and NT, Jenkins and Coward are expendable, thats 11%, and people talked about how Goldman was getting too much time this year so maybe another 10% there..... Hicks probably needs a 20% reduction in his snap count and Unrein is gone so thats 36.77%

That's maybe 20% of the total NT snaps potentially up for grabs, and a good 56.77% of the DE snaps (for a single player) to be divided up between Vea, Bullard, and RRH

That's plenty of room to squeeze a guy like Vea into the mix, particularly when accounting for potential injuries (we where surprisingly pretty lucky on the DL this past year), or if there's a lack of confidence in any of the current roster/ desire to move snaps away from players (Hicks being an obvious example of a guy who was overused this year)

He'd be on the field roughly twice as much as you are predicting.

[Epyon]

And literally a minute after typing that all out, we resigned Jenkins - NT for another season.... 

Doesn't look good for Vea that Jenkins gets resigned right after Vea visited so this is likely a pointless discussion anyhow. 

 

[AZBearsFan]

1 hour ago, Epyon said:

And literally a minute after typing that all out, we resigned Jenkins - NT for another season.... 

Doesn't look good for Vea that Jenkins gets resigned right after Vea visited so this is likely a pointless discussion anyhow. 

 

I believe Jenkins was a minimum salary deal. Can’t imagine his presence has any impact on our draft plans. Can probably say that about any FA going forward tbh. 

[TankWilliams]

Well seems like a lot of folks think that Nelson will go #6 to the Colts or #7 to the Bucs.

 

Assuming the following guys are gone, who do you draft?

Darnold

Rosen

Barkley

Chubb

Allen

James

 

Denzel Ward?  Tremaine Edumunds?

[beardown3231]

1 Davenport

2 Minkah

3 Ward

Edited April 7, 2018 by beardown3231

[IronMike84]

If we’re gonna have this whole discussion about how guards aren’t worth #8, we also have to admit that guys like Vea aren’t really worth it either.

I had multiple paragraphs typed up on this, but who cares, because not a whole lot of discussion is needed. Front seven players who aren’t must-plays on third downs don’t go in the top fifteen. There are loads of examples of this that I don’t even need to rattle off.