The Chicago Bears felt like a strong candidate to trade down from the 25th pick in the NFL draft last week. They had several roster spots to fill and needed more depth. Most experts believed the difference in talent between someone taken in the 20s and the 40s was negligible this year. One had to imagine general manager Ryan Poles was considering it. He has often liked stacking extra picks. However, when the time arrived and the Bears went on the clock, nothing happened. They stayed put and selected Oregon safety Dillon Thieneman.

It seems the trade action wasn’t quite strong enough. Or so we thought. People close to the organization told Sports Mockery that the Bears received several calls about moving the pick. As many as half a dozen teams were interested. Some of them even dangled veteran players in their offers. That includes Tyree Wilson. The Las Vegas Raiders traded the former 1st round pick to New Orleans for a 5th rounder during the draft. It appears they’d hoped that packaging him might be enough to entice the Bears to make a deal.

Once it became clear Thieneman would fall, Poles stopped taking calls.

The Chicago Bears probably made the right call.

If they hadn’t, it is almost certain that the Buffalo Bills would’ve taken him at #26 overall. Once the Bears selected Thieneman, they traded down from that spot and two more times to exit the 1st round entirely. San Francisco (#27) did the same. That proves the options after Thieneman weren’t ideal and also shows there was definitely a cluster of teams wanting to move up. Houston jumped up to take guard Keylan Rutledge. Miami pounced for cornerback Chris Johnson. New England went up for left tackle Caleb Lomu. The Jets came back in for wide receiver Omar Cooper, and Tennessee slipped back into the 1st round for defensive end Keldric Faulk.

The Bears’ decision clearly shows that they had a considerably higher grade on Thieneman than any of the other prospects they could’ve gotten had they moved down. In those situations, it is often more fruitful to take the player than to gather a few extra picks. Chicago needed another safety to pair with Coby Bryant. Thieneman could be slotted into the starting lineup immediately and boasts an All-Pro ceiling. It was a perfect fit. Wilson was never going to change the status quo.

The quality of the draft class played a big part in this.

Multiple reports have indicated that opinions of the 2026 class were low. In terms of talent depth, it was being mentioned in the same breath as 2013, one of the worst in modern NFL history. If picking high in the 1st round is unlikely to save you, then dropping further down the board seems inadvisable. It appears the Chicago Bears held that same opinion. Extra picks in a lackluster class wouldn’t be worth much. The better option is to get the best player possible and go from there.

Ironically, the two drafts played out in a similar way. In 2013, the Bears chose to stay put and pick. They ended up with guard Kyle Long, also from Oregon. Right after that, multiple teams swung trades to move down, including the Rams and Patriots. Time is a flat circle, it seems. Just over a decade later, the Bears took another Oregon kid late in the 1st round despite multiple calls for a trade. Maybe this is a sign that they made the right decision again. We’ll soon find out.

The Chicago Bears caught their fans and much of the media by surprise during the 3rd round of the 2026 draft. It started when they took Sam Roush 69th overall, a primarily blocking tight end. Then, before anybody could wrap their heads around it, they struck again, 20 picks later, selecting LSU wide receiver Zavion Thomas. Though he boasted 4.28 speed, he’d never cracked the 600-yard mark in any of his college seasons. Many had him graded as a likely 7th round pick, meaning the Bears had just done a major reach. However, it wasn’t that simple. Their evaluation of Thomas came from a different angle, and franchise legend Devin Hester played a part in it.

Back in 2006, then-GM Jerry Angelo faced a dilemma. The Bears loved Hester as a talent coming out of Miami. There was one problem. He had no defined position. He’d dabbled on offense and defense, but never settled in either. His biggest calling card was elite return ability. The scouting room was divided. Some wanted Ohio State defensive back Ashton Youboty. Others wanted to take a chance on Hester. Angelo felt the talent and character were worth the risk because, at worst, the team was getting a great returner. So they drafted him in the 2nd round.

The Bears just used the Devin Hester logic on Thomas.

According to Adam Hoge of CHGO, team brass didn’t see him as a fast but underdeveloped receiver. They saw a great return man with upside as a receiver. With the NFL bringing back kickoffs, having an explosive returner is more important than ever. That is why they decided to take the risk.

From the sounds of it, NFL teams viewed Thomas differently. The Bears graded him as the best returner in the draft and felt strongly that other teams felt the same way – enough that they didn’t think he’d last much longer. In any year, the best returner in the draft is never going to last long, but especially now that kick returns matter again.

It’s important to remember that Bears special teams coordinator Richard Hightower was one of the driving forces behind the new kickoff rule, which led to returns jumping from 32.8 percent in 2024 to 74.5 percent in 2025.

The Bears had 68 returns last season and project that number to stay near 70 for the foreseeable future. That’s 70 opportunities to start a drive with an explosive play, and potentially, a touchdown.

Thomas is very much a third-phase threat.

This isn’t a guy who had one big season and was dubbed a return specialist. He had a punt return touchdown as a freshman, a kick return touchdown as a sophomore, and another kick return touchdown as a junior. While he was not as prolific as Devin Hester, his ability was plain to see. The biggest shock by far was the decision by LSU to take him off kick return duties last season. Regardless, putting him in the hands of Richard Hightower is a potential boon for the Bears. Don’t forget that the special teams coordinator got a career year out of Devin Duvernay last season, who isn’t nearly as explosive as Thomas is.

The best part is that he is a far more natural receiver than Hester was. People forget the Hall of Famer was primarily a defensive back in college. He transitioned to receiver in the NFL, where he had some good seasons. Thomas has far more experience playing the position and has the added benefit of coming under the tutelage of head coach Ben Johnson and wide receivers coach Antwaan Randle El. Hester never had a setup like that in his entire career, which should add to the excitement of what’s coming.

Truth be told, the Bears shouldn’t be getting this much heat for taking a return man in the 3rd round. After all, it’s not like they’ve been able to find good players in that area of the draft. The only name who became a core contributor on the team to come out of that round in the past decade was David Montgomery. Might as well try a different approach.

The Chicago Bears went into the 1st round of the 2026 NFL draft unsure of what to expect. They’d run tons of simulations leading up to the event, trying to gauge which players might be available when they went on the clock. Experts had debated for weeks over who it would be. Many felt it would be an edge rusher. Others pinpointed an offensive tackle. Some even went with a cornerback or wide receiver. In the end, Bears general manager Ryan Poles went with Oregon safety Dillon Thieneman.

It marked the first time in 36 years that Chicago took a player at that position in the 1st round. Most felt the decision was justified. Thieneman came into the weekend as one of the top defensive prospects in the class, boasting a great mix of proven production and elite athleticism. Some thought he could’ve gone as high as 12th overall. Easy decision, right? Well, not entirely. According to Adam Hoge of CHGO, the final decision with the 25th pick came down to two players. Thieneman was one, and Auburn edge rusher Keldric Faulk was the other.

Rueben Bain Jr. is an example of an edge rusher the Bears did like, but they knew he was out of reach. There were more appetizing offensive tackles than pass rushers, but the predicted run on tackles held true. Six came off the board before No. 25, including three from Nos. 17 to 21.

As the Bears’ pick neared, Thieneman’s name was left standing out. They liked edge rusher Keldric Faulk, too. But Thieneman was the cleaner prospect. Faulk’s character was outstanding and he fit the Bears’ brand of football, but more projection was required because his production was lacking in 2025. The gap between the players was big enough to only briefly think about trading down.

They didn’t want to trade back and not land Thieneman.

Thieneman over Faulk was the correct decision by the Chicago Bears.

Chicago’s interest in the defensive end is the least surprising revelation ever. Faulk is 6’6″ with 34-inch arms, weighs 276 lbs, and displays high-end athleticism for his size. You couldn’t draw up a Dennis Allen defensive end in a lab any better. Given his noted exemplary character, the Bears’ interest in him was inevitable. Yet they still went with Thieneman, despite Faulk playing a premium position. Why? The simplest answer is impact. There was no debating how Thieneman impacted games for Oregon and Purdue before that. He did it regularly.

Faulk can’t make the same argument. Across three seasons, he only had 10 sacks as a pass rusher, and his pass-rush win rate was ranked among the worst in the class for 1st round prospects. He also disappeared in big games last season, having no notable impact against rivals like Alabama and Georgia. It is hard to say how much of that was due to his own deficiencies and how much to coaching. Thieneman, meanwhile, had produced for two different programs. It was as close to a sure thing as you can possibly get that late in the 1st round.

We’ll know the true results in a couple of years.

No doubt revisionist historians will slam the Chicago Bears if Thieneman ends up a disappointment and Faulk becomes a star. That is how it often goes in this business. Yet the truth is far different. There was nothing wrong with the team’s process. It wasn’t a case of them being completely ignorant of the situation. They understood the potential that Faulk represented. There were debates inside the building about it. What it came down to was finding the right balance of floor and ceiling.

Thieneman offered both. This is hardly the first time an NFL team has gone in such a direction. There is a reason Faulk fell to the 31st pick in the 1st round. Other organizations reached the same conclusion as Poles did. The risk was too high. Chicago needed a hit on defense, especially after the struggles they suffered through last season. Taking a swing at Faulk would’ve been reckless. The Bears weren’t in a position to do that, so they acted with sensible logic.

The Chicago Bears haven’t experienced a significant shakeup in their scouting department for the past couple of years. General manager Ryan Poles has maintained stability in that regard, fostering a tight-knit, insular culture. However, things have taken a turn this offseason. It started with assistant general manager Ian Cunningham departing to take over as the Atlanta Falcons’ new GM. This was always something the Bears had expected to happen sooner or later, so it wasn’t a huge surprise.

What might’ve been was the news that Keith Earle, one of their key area scouts, is also departing the team, according to Neil Stratton of Inside The League. Initial expectations are that he plans to join Cunningham in Atlanta.

It isn’t a huge surprise that Earle would do this. He was a player personnel intern for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2021, when Cunningham was the team’s top personnel director. The former assistant GM was likely the one who lured him to Chicago, where he quickly went from scouting assistant to area scout in just two years.

The Chicago Bears suddenly have a vital spot to fill.

Most people likely haven’t heard about the Midlands region in football scouting. That is because some teams don’t use it. You usually get the classics like the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, and West Coast. Yet because the country is so vast, teams sometimes decide to divide things further. The Midlands typically constitutes an area of land encompassing Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. In case you somehow don’t follow college football, that is one of the most talent-rich regions in the sport.

Earle had been in charge of that area for two years. In that time, the Bears seemed to trust his judgment on several draft picks. They took Shemar Turner (Texas A&M) and Zah Frazier (Texas-San Antonio) in the 2nd and 5th rounds last year. Last week, they took Zavion Thomas (LSU) and Malik Muhammad (Texas) in the 3rd and 4th rounds. If that weren’t enough, they also nabbed Jahdae Walker (Texas A&M) as an undrafted free agent from there. The Bears leaned heavily on Earle’s work in shaping their two most recent classes.

How they replace him will be interesting.

Typically, Poles has preferred to promote from within whenever the Bears lose somebody in the scouting department. We saw that when he elevated Jeff King to assistant GM after Cunningham’s departure. It stands to reason that it will be the case here. First guess is that Chicago could promote Nick Papagno into Earle’s role. Papagno came over from the Las Vegas Raiders the same year as Earle did in 2024, taking over as the team’s NFS scout. This is a role given to people who work the NFL Scouting Combine every year, assessing the incoming college senior class and weeding out players who don’t belong on the draft board.

The question is, do they trust him with such an important region like the Midlands, given his lack of experience? If not, it is possible we see some shuffling in the scouting department. The Chicago Bears could shift one of their more established evaluators to the Midlands and slot Papagno into their old spot. Barring all of that, they could also go hunting for some outside talent. Other scouting departments have experienced shakeups recently. There could be a few intriguing names worth adding to the mix.