You’ve probably been so lost in the franchise-defining decision-making about quarterback over the past couple of months — more like, the Super Bowl kerfuffle, am I right?! — that another important piece to the Bears’ offseason puzzle may have until now barely registered as a blip on your radar. Like finding a $60,000 lottery ticket in your jean pocket a week after cashing in a cool $25 million from offloading Bitcoin you had been nest-egging since 2012, you think to yourself: oh crap, the Bears draft at No. 9, too?
Since Caleb Williams has siphoned a tremendous amount of intrigue as the Bears’ all but official, high-stakes and high-reward selection at No. 1 overall in fewer than three weeks, the speculation over the choice eight picks later might be a bit less arousing than it’d be in usual years. But it’s no less important! Regarding whom it is the Bears plan to pair with Williams in the first round — a yet to be determined prospect destined to be the answer to a trivia question in 20 years — the presumptive field is narrow but still quite large.
The pick is going to be either a wide receiver, offensive tackle or defensive end. General manager Ryan Poles and head coach Matt Eberflus said so themselves in an April 1 story on the Bears’ official website titled, “Bears excited about what No. 9 pick in draft will yield,” written by the team’s own Larry Mayer.
Poles is quoted speaking from the NFL owners meetings in Orlando a week prior about his and the Bears’ staff’s plans to hash out their direction for No. 9 once they returned to Chicago. Bold emphasis below is mine.
“We’re going to do some cool things when we get back, kind of break into teams,” Poles said. “One team is going to talk about [why] the tackle position is the best to go after, [why] the receiver’s the best, [why] the defensive end’s the best and use factual information to spit that out—and we’ll have a debate in terms of what’s more impactful for our football team, short-term and long-term.”
Eberflus is also quoted explicitly referring to these three position groups: “We’re going to look at, ‘Hey, who’s the best tackle? Who’s the best receiver? Who’s the best rusher? Who’s the best this or that?’”
It’s true that neither position isn’t obvious. Outside of a defensive tackle, I couldn’t imagine the Bears mining the draft board at this spot for anything else. The lone caveat is tight end or, more specifically, Georgia’s Brock Bowers, although he’s effectively an NFL wide receiver in a tight end’s body.
That being said, unless the wily Bears are playing the ‘ol smoke-screen card or planning to trade back beyond the middle to early-late first round, you can be reasonably sure that your favorite team is picking one of these guys with its immediately post-Caleb selection, whether it be No. 9 overall or a few to several picks afterward:
- Graham Barton, OT, Duke
- Brock Bowers, TE, Georgia
- Laiatu Latu, EDGE, UCLA
- Olumuyiwa Fashanu, T, Penn St.
- Taliese Fuaga, OT, Oregon St.
- Tyler Guyton, OT, Oklahoma
- JC Latham, OT, Alabama
- Ladd McConkey, WR, Georgia
- Amarius Mims, OT, Georgia
- Adonai Mitchell, WR, Texas
- Rome Odunze, WR, Wash
- Joe Olt, OT, Notre Dame
- Chop Robinson, EDGE, Penn St.
- Darius Robinson, EDGE, Missouri
- Kingsley Suamataia, OT, BYU
- Brian Thomas, WR, LSU
- Dallas Turner, EDGE, Alabama
- Jared Verse, EDGE, Florida St.
If we’re giving authority to players who’ve made a Top-30 visit to the Bears as of today, a list tracked by NFLTradeRumors.co, among others, our prospect list gets significantly shorter:
- Graham Barton, OT, Duke
- Brock Bowers, TE, Georgia
- Tyler Guyton, OT, Oklahoma
- Rome Odunze, WR, Wash
- Chop Robinson, EDGE, Penn St.
- Dallas Turner, EDGE, Alabama
It’s also worth noting that half the participants in a poll on our wildly popular X account have thus far indicated a preferrence for the Bears to target a defensive end at No. 9. By “wildly popular,” I mean 326 followers, and by “half,” I mean eight people. Feel free to vote below, however, to really give this thing some momentum!
Also, watch out for burnt orange, navy blue’s official “this mock draft is probably terrible” full Bears mock draft — where I predict, probably incorrectly, what the Bears will do with each of their four current selections — coming next week.
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