Surviving No 1st Rounders Will Require An Uncomfortable Chicago Bears Draft Strategy

The Chicago Bears find themselves without a 1st round pick going into a draft for the first time since 2022. General manager Ryan Poles has created a situation that his predecessors stared down in years past. Jerry Angelo did it after the Jay Cutler trade. Ryan Pace did it after the Khalil Mack trade. This is easily the biggest challenge for any GM. Can you put together a productive draft without the relative safety net that 1st round picks are? Rest assured, it is a situation that has sunk plenty of regimes in the past.

There has to be a strategy Poles can look to. His approach over the past couple of years won’t work since it hinges on ensuring the 1st round pick was a good one. As it turns out, there is a path for the Bears. Unfortunately, it isn’t what you would call a comfortable one. It requires equal amounts of good scouting, good coaching, and good luck to pull off.

The Bears will have to take some risky swings on players with high physical upside.

The 2023 draft has two examples for the Chicago Bears.

There are two competing strategies for the draft. Some teams look for “traits” players. These are guys with blue-chip athletic talent that can dominate on Sunday. The problem is that a vast swath of them are underdeveloped and lack the football acumen to play against veterans in this league. On the flip side, you have the “productive” players. These are guys who did their jobs week in and week out, showing they could handle what was asked of them. The issue here is that many of these types are often maxed out. In other words, their ability to grow any further is limited.

Traits-based drafts are boom or bust. If you manage to develop one or two of those players, they can become stars. On the other hand, if they never seem to figure things out, the entire draft class falls apart. Conversely, production-based drafts usually provide a steady stream of solid players, but landing stars is rarer. The Chicago Bears have opted for the latter strategy, at least in the 2nd round. So far, only Luther Burden has stood out as a hit. That is fine since their 1st rounders, Colston Loveland and Dillon Thieneman, have been great. Poles can’t afford to bank on solid this time around. He needs to swing for some real hits.

Lucky for him, the Los Angeles Rams and Denver Broncos offer great examples of why the high upside strategy works.

2023 Rams draft class

2023 Broncos draft class

The Rams have a long history of flipping 1st round picks for veteran players, so they’re familiar with having to be accurate with their 2nd and 3rd rounders. Unafraid of taking risks, they gambled on two defensive linemen. Byron Young was undersized at 6’2, 250 lbs, but he had explosive 4.43 speed. Kobie Turner was also smaller at 6’2″, 288 lbs for defensive tackle, but had rare power. The two have combined for 56 sacks.

For Denver, Mims was only 182 lbs. What they saw was blazing speed. Not only did he become a valuable field-stretcher on offense, but also a two-time All-Pro return man on special teams. Moss brought 4.48 speed and a 39-inch vertical from Iowa. That helped him become a starter on a defense that has ranked in the top 10 each of the past three seasons. Skinner was a great athlete in college, as evidenced by his ability to play multiple positions. That enabled him to become one of Denver’s best special teams aces.

The Chicago Bears don’t have to hit a home run over the next two years. They just need to keep the pipeline of young talent active.