The Bears appear to be pretty settled on what they’ll be doing with the first overall pick in this year’s draft, so the next few weeks are likely to center on discussion about their other first-round pick.
Chicago also has No. 9 in its control and head coach Matt Eberflus said last week that free agency has left the team able to be flexible about what “we feel fits us in that spot.” General Manager Ryan Poles said that the process of working that out will involve splitting the personnel staff up into teams to debate what direction is going to bring the Bears the most value.
“I like the numbers in terms of the talented players that can get to nine,” Poles said, via the team’s website. “We’re going to do some cool things when we get back, kind of break into teams. One team is going to talk about [why] the tackle position is the best to go after, [why] the receiver’s the best, [why] the defensive end’s the best and use factual information to spit that out — and we’ll have a debate in terms of what’s more impactful for our football team, short-term and long-term.”
Poles left the door open to trading down from No. 9 in addition to making a pick in that spot, so they’ll have to see what the teams in front of them do in addition to completing their in-house work before things get underway in Detroit this month.