Two weeks separate football fans from the most anticipated offseason event of the year: the NFL draft. Around this time is when exhaustion sets in. People are tired of reading scouting reports and mock drafts. They want the action to start. Sometimes it’s fun to alleviate some of that tension by looking at the process differently. In this case, exciting player comparisons involving the Chicago Bears.
Pro Football Focus released a comprehensive guide for the upcoming 2022 class. If you have time, be sure to read it. The details are outstanding. I decide to scroll through some of the top prospects and noticed they each had a comparison attached to their profiles. It was here that the writers unearthed some truly inspired callbacks. That includes two former Bears nobody could see coming. Names that may warn people off from prospects they may have liked.
Being compared to former Chicago Bears is good. Right?
Alec Pierce (WR, Cincinnati)
Bears fans have come to love the tall Bearcats receiver because he’s a native of the Chicagoland area. That love may have soured upon learning he’s a Packers fan, but it doesn’t erase the fact he is a talented player. Not only does he boast 6’4 size but also cracked the sub-4.4 area in the 40-yard dash. So he has vertical speed. The athletic talent is there, but his production never really stood out. Last year was his best season, with just over 800 yards. According to the guide, his comparison was “a bigger Emanuel Hall.”
Don’t feel bad if you forgot the name. Hall was an undrafted free agent out of Missouri the Bears signed in 2019. He was known for his intriguing mixture of 6’4 size and sub-4.4 speed. The problem was he never translated that into significant production in college. Like Pierce, his two best seasons were both in the 800-yard range. So yeah, the comparison is pretty accurate from that perspective. Not a great sign for Pierce, considering Hall never played a single snap in the NFL.
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Wan’Dale Robinson (WR, Kentucky)
Kentucky might be a basketball school, but the football program delivers occasional quality talents to the NFL. Many feel Robinson has a good chance to be in that exclusive group. After two modest seasons in 2019 and 2020, he exploded for 1,334 receiving yards and seven touchdowns in 2021. Scouts are enamored with his quickness and agility, able to make defenders miss with alarming regularity in the open field. Not to mention his considerable speed.
The problem is he’s 5’8 and got a lot of his numbers from creative offensive scheming. PFF called him a “faster Daniel Braverman.” The Chicago Bears drafted the former Western Michigan star in the 7th round in 2016. He had a promising first training camp and preseason, but it wasn’t enough to earn more than 17 offensive snaps. Part of the issue was speed, which may save Robinson, but it was also limited route-running skills.
There is every chance Pierce and Robinson will be different. Still, earning comparisons to two receivers that never played a regular season down in the NFL can’t be ideal. It also offers a red flag about whether the Bears should consider either one when they go on the clock later this month.
