With football season long over with (well,pretty much) you can now look ahead to the draft Chicago Bears fans. With the #11 overall pick in the draft, I think you got to get the linebacker or offensive lineman.
Like Curtis Conway told me at the NFL Network’s NFL Draft Media luncheon in Chicago last year:
“Foxy will go defense, let him go heavy defense. Let him run this team.”
Hence we slot Defensive Best Player Available in our latest NFL mock draft. The Bears desperately need to rebuild their defense in order to be a Super Bowl contender again. The odds of the Bears making it back to the big game are long. Vegas Insider has them a 50-1 shot. Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook gives slightly better odds at 40-1.
If you’re making multiple Chicago Bears bets at several different sports books, track them all with BetBind. That way you can keep your wins and losses organized. As for the Bears wins and losses, it all starts with the draft, held in their hometown again this spring.
The team should start at the linebacker position, as the Bears badly need to rebuild in this area. The era of Lance Briggs and Brian Urlacher feels like it was 30 years ago, not 3.
“At inside linebacker in particular, it’s not great but there’s some good ones, you can get a guy like Antonio Morrison from Florida, a third or fourth round guy,” said Mel Kiper Jr.
“I’ll just throw him out there, he had the injury but came back, he is a tackling machine. Scooby Wright, how will he test out that will determine where Scooby goes. He’s intriguing”
I could see the Chicago Bears getting some Scooby snacks. Maybe Scooby could really be the kind of player the Bears need. Somebody dominant, like a certain individual you’ll see in the Super Bowl on Sunday.
“Von Miller’s a guy who can look like he’s not moving fast, but he’s covering a lot of ground and he’s very good with leverage. So he can put his hands on you, and you fall asleep there for a second, and he sheds you…” – Chicago Bears tackle Kyle Long.
Personally though, I think they’ll go Reggie Ragland of Alabama at the #11 slot. Other options Kiper mentioned:
“Versatile kid like Terrance Smith at Florida State, Kentrell Brothers at Missouri. Pretty good group but not tremendously deep. Noah Spence really came on late in the year, he’s got a chance to be a pass rusher coming off the edge that you can pick up probably early to mid second round.”
Actually, Noah Spence is a really intriguing opition for the Chicago Bears. Scouts writing on NFL.com project him as a sleeper top 15 pick now. He’s in the Senior Bowl, and he was the first 5-star recruit of Urban Meyer at OSU. He was kicked out of the Big Ten for failed drug tests, and he’s been very public and contrite about his previous addiction to ecstasy. Has he reformed? We’ll see.
But what a great reclamation project story he would make for the Chicago Bears.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram