Bear(ing) the News – A Chicago Bears Blog

Mel Kiper at ESPN regrades the 2015 draft. Not surprisingly, the Bears came out pretty well.

“Post-draft grade: B-plus

“Give the Bears’ front office a lot of credit, because it was a bad break to lose Kevin White for an entire season. They still managed to get some important building blocks out of this class, and they did it while winning more games than the year before. Progress was made, and the draft helped. Eddie Goldman was a good value in Round 2, and Jeremy Langford could take over for Matt Forte if the Bears and Forte part ways. A true steal was Adrian Amos in Round 5. I know I’m supposed to have a soft spot for him since we went to the same high school, but I certainly didn’t pump up his value for that reason and was actually surprised at how well he played. I’d keep the grade the same for now, and it goes up or down based on what White delivers.

“New grade: B-plus”

Though I’m not sure Amos holds onto that starting safety spot as the Bears upgrade their talent and the Bears didn’t draft a quarterback of the future, if White turns out to be a good receiver and Hronis Grasu turns into a good starter, this draft gets a solid ‘A’. Every pick from top to bottom either contributed in 2015 or showed the potential to contribute in the near future. You can’t expect any better than that.

Eric D. Williams at ESPN comments upon Mel Kiper‘s first mock draft:

“Kiper said he felt cornerback, offensive guard and defensive line — both defensive end and defensive tackles — are deep position groups in this year’s draft.

“Twenty of the 31 players in Kiper’s initial mock draft were defensive players, and 11 of those 20 defensive players were defensive linemen.

“‘Defensive line probably and corner are the strong positions in this draft by a mile,’ Kiper said.”

That’s good news for a Bears team in desperate need of playmakers on the defensive side of the ball. Though, like Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune, I’d prefer a pass rusher and the high end of the draft looks bare of worthy inside linebackers, the Bears have needs at every level of the defense. Especially the defensive line.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune answers your questions:

“Do you see the Bears picking a quarterback in the first three rounds? — @albert80

“I think the bigger question is would the Bears pull the trigger on a quarterback in the first round. That’s where the talent lies. If there is a quarterback they really like, they’d have to make that move because it’s rare that a team is in position to draft a quarterback it truly covets. However, there are a host of needs on the roster, especially on defense. Unless they love the quarterback, I think they go in a different direction in Round 1. If you’re talking about drafting a quarterback outside of the first round, it becomes a much bigger crap shoot than the already big crap shoot it is drafting quarterbacks in Round 1.”

I would love to see the Bears take a quarterback that they loved in round 1. But from what I’ve seen so far, I haven’t seen one that I love so I can’t exactly expect that they will have, either. At some point I’ll get back to breaking them down but so far the only top quarterback I haven’t seen is North Dakota State’s Carson Wentz and no one has impressed me as a “must have” prospect for the future of the franchise.

That means that if the Bears are going to find a quarterback who has the talent to eventually start with some development, they are almost certainly going to have to go with the “much bigger crap shoot” in the second or third rounds. Yes, it’s a risk but its a risk that you have to start taking now so that if it doesn’t work out, you can take another bite at the apple sooner rather than later.

The entire draft is a crap shoot. But you can’t win if you don’t play.

Mark Potash at the Chicago Sun-Times makes a good point about the Bears special teams:

“The Bears have obvious priorities in signing their own free agents this offseason: wide receiver Alshon Jeffery, cornerback Tracy Porter, running back Matt Forte, linebacker Shea McClellin and tight end Zach Miller— probably in that order. But they can’t ignore special teams. And their top four special-teams tacklers from last season are free agents: Sherrick McManis (17), Joshua Bellamy (10), Chris Prosinski (9) and Sam Acho (8). Their two main kick returners — [Marc] Mariani and Deonte Thompson (29.2 yards per kickoff return) also are free agents.”

I don’t expect that any of these guys would be too tough to resign. And given that Prosinski, Acho and Mariani all contributed in good ways on the field at various times during the season is a good indicaiton that the Bears will want them back. Even Bellamy, who has a bad habit of dropping  passes, showed his value at times when called upon as the wide receiver position was devastated with injuries at certain times. But I’m not too sure about McManis, who struggled to cover slot receivers at the nickel back position when given a chance to play.

Special teamers ideally have to be decent backups as well. I’m not too sure the Bears will decide that they can afford to carry McManis if they feel that he can’t be relied upon when needed.

The standard thought amongst fans is that the Bears have a tremendous amount of cap space to sign big free agents in the offseason this year. According to sportrac.com, that’s both true and not true.

The Bears will have roughly $55 million dollars in available cap space in the offseason. That ranks them second amongst the 32 NFL teams. However, their “cap health” only ranks them at 12th. That’s because they only have 14 of their 22 starters signed and those 14 take up 62% of their available space.

The bottom line is that, because the Bears available cap space has to be used to replace a relatively large percentage of the players on their roster, their ability to spend a great deal of money on only one or two free agents is limited.

Still, 12th ranks them in the top end of the league and the Bears are in great financial shape for the coming offseason. Just not as great as some people think.