BigbadB

We don't know what the guys in the war room know. All the guys paid money to predict where everyone gets drafted don't even know what's going on in those rooms. For every guy who lives up to his draft pick position, there is another guy who didn't. There are obviously can't miss prospects, but each GM, HC, OC and DC have their own lists of guys who fit their needs and wants. Maybe a guy like Hyppolite is something Dennis Allen wanted for a LB that can keep pace with a guy like Hockenson and LaPorta on passing downs, or chasing running QB's or RB's who catch a lot of passes. Mocks can be fun to speculate where guys will get drafted, but at the end of the day, those mocks can be way off or right on the money, depending on how much research they do. Or it may not even matter how much research they do. It's possible that 3 or 4 of the UDFA's the Bears picked up after the draft end up being better than Hyppolite. Once you get past the first 3 or 4 rounds, it's a crapshoot if you are getting an NFL caliber player anyway. So is a pre-draft visit something to throw off other teams on your draft plans or just to rule out guys you might be interested in? What's a bit fascinating is that they host a lot of players pre-draft, but not one of the guys they invited got drafted. They hosted Tyler Warren, but not Coleston. They hosted 6 WR's, but not Burden. They hosted 5 OLinemen, but none of the guys they drafted. To me, Swift, Kmet, Edmunds and Thuney (if he doesn't get extended) is where the big savings for payroll happens next year. The draft protected all of those positions, except RB, unless the 7th rounder is legit. They can easily pick up a RB in next year's draft. The Bears drafted guys that we didn't expect. I never saw a mock with Burden or Coleston, so I agree it was puzzling. But I'm certainly not going to pretend I know better what this team needed than Poles, Johnson and Allen.

Line up is: Happ Tucker Seiya Kelly Turner Hoerner PCA Swanson Berti

Well this is dumb.

How would the inconsistency hurt. He gave Skenes the benefit of the doubt on every pitch. He would have walked several more if it weren’t for the umpire. I think Skenes was just off today.

Glad to see someone get rung up. You can’t stay silent when he’s not even calling the game the same way.

This umpire sucks.

Rea is not getting the same strike zone as Skenes.

6th different offering at 3b now. Shaw, Turner, Berti, Workman, Brujan and Lopez. Cool!

Saw this in a comment somewhere on Facebook. Can’t verify accuracy, but maybe it’s true?

Even worse, he actually pinch hit for Busch last night.

Yeah, he's not getting 6-8. That's a little bit less than Montgomery got, and he wasn't nearly as old or had two extensive knee surgeries. Not to mention it's the tail end of offseason and he's still looking for a team, while most teams are basically tapped out on their cap space. Either he accepts an offer to play for someone now at a discount price or he waits for a team to have a significant injury in preseason. The Bears ought to be a pretty nice fit for him to show he still has something left.

Yes, you should do everything possible to try to destroy the first team to give you a looksee at anything above AA ball.

That shouldn't be a problem since it would take reworking someone's contract to make a big signing fit the cap. I don't think Chubb can be asking for the moon since he was pretty blah last year. Cleveland actually benched him in favor of Ford a lot more than expected. I will say another offseason workout program should make his repaired knee stronger. The guy has been one of the best when he's healthy, so I'm on board if it is the Bears kicking the tires. Just don't kick his tires too hard.

At the time, his choice to kneel during games became a bigger distraction than the actual attraction of the football game itself. No team wanted that distraction. He was better than many backups, and maybe even a few starters, but that distraction came with him. And I seem to recall he wanted $20m a year and didn't feel like he needed to do tryouts to prove he could still play. I think he ended up blackballing himself, not that the owners colluded to blackball him, I think they all chose individually that they didn't want to deal with the controversy of signing him.

I had to look him up to see if his middle name was Frank. It is not.

Kiper rated the Bears the 7th best draft and really only dinged them on missing out on a DE.

I'm not going to call any of their picks "guys off the street". Dennis Allen may have wanted a speedy LB that can run with a TE in 3rd down sets. He will likely be dynamic in Special Teams. His speed is off the charts for a LB. Just about any warm body might be as good as Edmunds has been. And maybe Edmunds could use some plays off. I think I saw that Edmunds played every down in 14 of the 17 games played. Curious if Shemar Turner can move around on the DL. His bio mentions that he has lined up at DE at times. His quickness/power could create mismatches

Here is the list of UDFA's the Bears signed so far. Major Burns, S, LSU Power Echols, LB, North Carolina J.P. Richardson, WR, TCU Luke Elkin, LS, Iowa Jonathan Kim, K, Michigan State Xavier Carlton, EDGE, Cal Jahdae Walker, WR, Texas A&M Tysheem Johnson, S, Oregon Jereme Robinson, DE, Kansas The WR room is going to be pretty full in camp this year. Moore, Odunze, Zaccheaus, Burden, Duvernay, Scott, Boykin, Nsimba Webster, Collin Johnson, John Jackson, Maurice Alexander, Samori Toure, JP Richardson and Jahdae Walker. ESPN doesn't have Johnson or Webster on the roster, but NFL.com does.

I wonder if Ian Wheeler might be their diamond in the rough at RB. He has a great preseason last year before his injury. They obviously have some competition for Swift and Johnson in camp even if it isn't guys that were available to draft earlier. I will say that the end result is a bit sad considering RB and EDGE were supposedly deep talent pools. I'm not as down on Swift as most of the fanbase seems to be. Fixing the line is going to improve the running game. He has great hands and running after the catch in the open hasn't been a problem for him. Burden III seems like a guy who could get some backfield touches as well. This could be a very explosive offense. I think the defensive line will be decent enough. DT should be rock solid with plenty of depth to rotate and keep guys fresh. Interested to see what Dennis Allen can do with these guys.

As of the last power rankings, all but 3 games were against top 10 teams, not just winning teams.

Or safety.

Gonna be an air show.

A CBS mock draft of the second round shows the Bears getting TreyVeyon Henderson (RB) at 39 and Donovan Ezeiruaku (EDGE) at 41. While I felt LT was the biggest need, I would say that haul would be pretty damn good. Maybe there is hope Amegadjie can be the guy after one more year as Braxton's understudy. Maybe Jones does better with a better supporting cast and gets extended. All hope is not lost. They could go Aereontae Ersery (OT) with one of those 2nd round picks and then grab an EDGE or RB in the 3rd. Safety is the next biggest need of those not mentioned. Same mock has OT Charles Grant going to the Bears in the 3rd. Braxton was only a 5th rounder, so maybe they can catch lightning in a bottle and grab another 4 year starter on day 3.

Clay Matthews said he spoke to Trump earlier that day and that Trump wrote a letter that he wanted read before the draft started, which is when Matthews opened the letter and read "Bears Still Suck", signed Donald Trump.

With the strength of the RB class, I’ll be sad if they trade up for Jeanty and Mason Graham is available at 10.