With the 2020 NFL Draft in the books, the Chicago Bears welcomed seven new players to their roster. General manager Ryan Pace addressed several roster needs, including tight end with Cole Kmet, cornerback with Jaylon Johnson and Kindle Vildor, pass rush with Trevis Gipson, receiver Darnell Mooney and offensive line with Arlington Hambright and Lachavious Simmons.
There’s a lot to digest with this Bears’ draft class, including several implications for this team moving forward in 2020.
Here are six takeaways from the Bears’ 2020 draft class.
1. Safety wasn’t a pressing priority in their eyes
Heading into the 2020 NFL Draft, safety was listed among the top needs for the Bears. With a strong safety spot left to vacate with Ha Ha Clinton Dix’s departure, the Bears were expected to bring in a rookie to start opposite Eddie Jackson.
The stars looked to be aligning for Chicago in the second round. The Bears had some top safeties still on the board when picks 43 and 50 rolled around, and they’d have had their pick of LSU’s Grant Delpit, Minnesota’s Antoine Winfield Jr. and Southern Illinois’ Jeremy Chinn.
Instead, they opted to select tight end Cole Kmet at pick 43, surely a need, but it was definitely a surprise. When pick 50 rolled around, they nabbed one of the draft’s top cornerbacks in Utah’s Jaylon Johnson, which no one could argue with.
“It was a pretty deep corner draft and there was a run on them in the first round,” GM Ryan Pace told reporters. “We tried to stay true to our board as we could and when Cole was there with that first pick, we were excited to get him there at that spot.”
There were still some developmental safeties on the board when Round 5 rolled around, but the Bears opted to forgo safety for edge rusher, cornerback and wide receiver. If anything, it speaks more to the deeper cornerback class than anything.
The Bears feel comfortable, to a degree, with Deon Bush, Jordan Lucas and DeAndre Houston-Carson competing for that strong safety spot opposite Jackson. Not to mention, the Bears could still snag Tony Jefferson on the free-agent market if anything else.
2. Bears are confident in OL coach Juan Castillo to right the ship
There’s no doubt that offensive line is one of Chicago’s biggest concerns this offseason. But, believe it or not, their biggest acquisition when it comes to the offensive line this offseason wasn’t going to come in the NFL Draft.
Perhaps the most important factor in fixing the Bears’ offensive line woes is new offensive line coach Juan Castillo, who was also brought in to assist with the run game.
While the Bears have a starting right guard spot to fill, Ryan Pace feels comfortable enough with Germain Ifedi, Alex Bars and Rashaad Coward to battle for that spot in training camp. Which explains the lack of interest in offensive linemen in the first five rounds.
The Bears finally addressed offensive line in the seventh round, as they drafted Colorado offensive guard Arlington Hambright and Tennessee State offensive tackle Lachavious Simmons. Both guys are depth players at this point, but the hope is that they can develop into something more down the line.
Still, Chicago’s willingness to forgo offensive line in the earlier rounds says a lot more about their confidence in Castillo to right the ship than anything else.
3. Adam Shaheen looks like he’s on his way out
There were a lot of people up in arms about the Bears’ decision to take a tight end in the second round. But when it came down to it, Chicago addressed a need with the selection of Notre Dame’s Cole Kmet at pick 43. And it also signaled the presumptive end for another former second-round tight end.
Kmet’s selection was Pace admitting another mistake — this time with former second-rounder Adam Shaheen, who has been a disappointment in his three injury-shortened years in Chicago. Shaheen has just 26 catches for 249 yards and four touchdowns in 27 games.
Even before the Bears drafted Kmet, the belief was that Shaheen would face an uphill battle to earn a roster spot at training camp. With then-nine tight ends on the roster, there were arguments to be made for guys like J.P. Holtz and Jesper Horsted over Shaheen.
Now, Kmet will assume the starting “Y” tight end role that was supposed to be Shaheen’s. It feels as if the writing is on the wall with Shaheen, and he’ll likely be another failed early-round draft pick by Pace.
4. Pace might’ve found some more late-round gems in 5th round
Ultimately when looking back at the Bears’ 2020 draft class, it might be the fifth-rounders that we’re talking about. While Ryan Pace has failed on more than one occasion with his first-round selections, he’s almost made up for it with some of the studs that he’s found in the later rounds.
Pace traded twice in the fifth round to acquire some high-value prospects. The Bears traded a 2021 fourth-round pick to move up eight spots before their first fifth-rounder to select Tulsa edge rusher Trevis Gipson, who has the physical tools to develop into a bonafide No. 3 EDGE player for the Bears.
The Bears added Georgia Southern cornerback Kindle Vildor with their actual fifth-round selection. And while he’s not going to be an immediate starter like Johnson, he’ll be a solid special teams player for Chicago. But Pace wasn’t done after Vildor. He traded both sixth-round picks to move back into the fifth round to take Tulane receiver Darnell Mooney, who should provide some much-needed speed to this Bears offense.
“We felt like that area of the draft — right there in the fifth round — there was a lot of value for us where we had players graded really high on our board,” Pace told reporters.
It’s too early to gauge whether these players will become the late-round gems that Eddie Jackson and Nick Kwiatkoski, among others, have become. But when it comes to the later rounds, Pace’s track record speaks for itself.
5. Jaylon Johnson could be one of the biggest steals of the draft
The Bears got a top-three cornerback talent in Utah’s Jaylon Johnson in the second round, and you can’t help but feel like Chicago might’ve gotten a second-round steal. Johnson is an intelligent, ballhawk of a corner that will challenge receivers and figures to be plugged in as an immediate starter opposite Pro Bowler Kyle Fuller.
The reason Johnson fell to the Bears in the second round had nothing to do with his talent and everything to do with his injury history. Johnson has dealt with shoulder injuries during his collegiate career, and most recently he underwent surgery after the NFL Combine to repair a torn labrum in his shoulder.
Some general managers shy away from players with injury concerns. But Pace isn’t one of them. That’s how he wound up securing All-Pro safety Eddie Jackson in the fourth round in 2017 and even receiver Anthony Miller in the second round in 2018. Both had injury concerns, but they’re both contributors for this team. Jackson, especially, is integral to this defense. Perhaps we’ll be saying the same about Johnson down the line.
6. Bears botch the QB position in the draft, again
Remember when GM Ryan Pace said that teams would be smart to draft a quarterback every year? That’s the same guy that’s drafted just one quarterback in his six-year tenure in Chicago — and, at this point, that one id deemed an epic failure.
Pace passed on a quarterback, yet again, and it’s fair to wonder if Pace will ever get over the QB hump? Not that any of these guys were sure-things in the later rounds. But it doesn’t hurt to add a young prospect to your roster to grow behind two veterans.
Rather than snag a developmental prospect like Washington State’s Anthony Gordon in the seventh round, the Bears elected to draft back-to-back offensive linemen. Gordon went on to sign as an undrafted free agent with the Seattle Seahawks. Meanwhile, the Bears signed eight undrafted free agents — none of them quarterbacks.
Look, it’s understandable that Chicago’s focus is seeing what they can get out of Mitchell Trubisky and Nick Foles. But continuing to ignore the quarterback position in the NFL Draft is only making Pace look even more foolish than trading up to draft Trubisky over Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson.
