The Chicago Bears are guilty like any other team of passing on future great players in favor of ones they had no business taking in the NFL draft. However, as much as those decisions can sting, there is another type that might be even worse. The picks where you came up just one slot short of a future great. A player your team knew was going to be good but another team got there first.
It has happened more often than you think. Some of them were truly painful. For the purposes of this list, no picks outside the 1st round will be included. Anything beyond that is mostly guesswork. This is about the Bears coming so close to multiple franchise-altering moments only to have a mix of bad luck and indecision get in their way.
Perhaps after reading this people won’t be so hard on Ryan Pace anymore.
Chicago Bears have come that close a number of times
1970: Terry Bradshaw
The infamous pick was decided by a coin flip. After finishing with their worst record in franchise history in 1969 at 1-13, the Bears had a chance to secure the #1 pick in the 1970 draft. The prize would be Louisiana Tech quarterback Terry Bradshaw. All Chicago had to do was win a coin flip. The Bears called heads. It came up tails. Pittsburgh landed the pick and took Bradshaw. Chicago ended up trading out of the 1st round entirely. The Steelers went on to win four Super Bowls during the decade. Chicago only made the playoffs twice, failing to win a game during either trip.
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1985: Jerry Gray
This one is lost to history. Mostly because the 1st round pick the Bears ended up with was William Perry. He became an instant fan favorite and a pretty good defensive tackle for several years. Unfortunately, they missed out on a star out of Texas in Jerry Gray. He went a pick earlier to the Los Angeles Rams and became a stalwart at cornerback for them, recording 28 interceptions between 1986 and 1992. People may question whether the Bears would’ve picked him. The fact they took Reggie Phillips, a cornerback, in the 2nd round says they were aiming to grab somebody at that position. Gray would’ve been an easy pick.
1998: Charles Woodson
This one undoubtedly hurt way more than Gray did though. Charles Woodson was a superstar in the making. Everybody knew from the time he was at Michigan, becoming the only defensive player to win the Heisman Trophy. The Chicago Bears were in the same division as peak Brett Favre at that time. It would’ve been a no-brainer pick if the Raiders hadn’t snagged him with the 4th selection. Robbed of the prize, they settled for Penn State standout running Curtis Enis instead. He immediately suffered through injury problems and was a bust in Chicago. Fittingly, Woodson ended up in Green Bay in the 2000s and helped slam their Super Bowl window shut.
2003: Andre Johnson
Passing the ball continued to be a struggle for the Bears in the early 2000s. A big part of that was quarterback problems (shocker right?) but they also had issues at wide receiver. Marcus Robinson never rebounded from a bad knee injury and former 1st round pick David Terrell hadn’t looked too good through two years. With the 4th pick in 2003, the Bears had a chance to land Miami star Andre Johnson who’d just helped the Hurricanes win the national championship. Houston got there first at #3. The Bears ended up trading back, securing the 14th and 22nd picks which they used on Michael Haynes and Rex Grossman. As is routine on this list, Johnson haunted them five years later in 2008 when he ruined their hopes of making the playoffs with 148 yards and two TDs in the season finale.
2012: Melvin Ingram
The Bears were hunting for pass rush help in 2012. That much was obvious from the moment the offseason began. Julius Peppers was getting older and they had no secondary guy. Somebody they seemed to like going into the draft was South Carolina’s Melvin Ingram. They came so close to getting their guy with the 19th pick…until the Chargers ruined their dreams at #18. This is what led to Phil Emery’s infamous decision to grab Shea McClellin out of Boise State instead, passing on Chandler Jones of Syracuse who was still on the board. Ingram became a three-time Pro Bowler and would’ve been such a needed jolt of youth in that defense. Instead, the McClellin decision hastened its demise.
2014: Aaron Donald
This is the one that most Chicago Bears fans probably remember the most. Everybody knew Aaron Donald was going to be the pick. It was such an obvious fit. They ran a 4-3 defense and needed that three-technique interior guy. A position made for Donald. One problem. The St. Louis Rams ran the same defense and felt they just couldn’t pass on Donald either. Just like that, the Bears missed out on a surefire Hall of Famer. The best defensive player of this generation. Only landing Kyle Fuller with the next pick managed to soften the blow somewhat, but not enough to remove the sting entirely.
