Last month’s draft was as much about belief the Bears had in their coaching staff as it was the college players the team picked.
The Bears were thrilled that Oregon’s Dillon Thieneman lasted until the No. 25 overall pick. Still, history has shown that teams would rather acquire safeties far later in the draft; he was just the 10th safety picked in the top 25 in the past 10 drafts.
In Round 3, the Bears surprised many around the league when they took both a third tight end and a kickoff returner. CBS ranked Stanford tight end Sam Roush the 104th player on its big board; the Bears picked him 69th. Pro Football Focus considered LSU receiver/returner Zavion Thomas a seventh-round pick.
The Bears’ rationale, then and now, was that they drafted players with the specific traits their coaches desired. Friday morning, for the first time, those coaches will be on the field alongside their draft picks.
On Day 1 of rookie minicamp, they’ll work with the team’s seven-player class, undrafted free agent signees and tryout players. Miller Moss, who was Caleb Williams’ former backup quarterback at USC, headlines the undrafted free agent class, while Illinois center Josh Kreutz, whose dad Olin was once the Bears’ stalwart center, is among the tryout players.
All eyes will be on the players who came off the draft board last month, though — and what the coaches can do with them. Succeed, and the Bears will have developed, for the second straight year, a roster of rookies that play the way Johnson wants them to. Fail, and the Bears will have wasted a chance to improve a playoff roster.
The Bears consider their coaching staff a strength of their franchise. Before Johnson’s arrival, it had been years — since the Matt Nagy-Vic Fangio combo of 2018 — when that could be said with a straight face. Johnson lost only two assistants this offseason: offensive coordinator Declan Doyle, who didn’t call plays, and running backs coach Eric Bieniemy. Everyone else on the staff knows the Bears’ roster — and Johnson’s expectations — better than they did last season.
Johnson falls just three Super Bowl wins and 268 regular-season victories shy of the Chiefs’ Andy Reid. Nonetheless, he’s invigorated Bears general manager Ryan Poles, whose last job was in Kansas City.
“You hope for that level of creativity …” Poles said of Johnson. “You can put guys in position to really highlight their specific trait to create an advantage. You welcome that all the time. His ability to do that, it reminds me of where I came from. He has a vision.”
His vision helped steer the Bears draft.
A year ago, the Bears’ haul was highlighted by skill position players with distinguished college careers. Colston Loveland held Michigan’s single season record for catches by a tight end. Luther Burden had posted the third-best receiving season ever for a Missouri receiver. Kyle Monangai was the second-leading career rusher in Rutgers history.
This year’s class, by comparison, is more niche.
Defensive coordinator Dennis Allen decided at the end of the season that the Bears weren’t fast enough to cover and tackle well. As a result, the Bears let linebacker Tremaine Edmunds, cornerback Nahshon Wright and safeties Kevin Byard and Jaquan Brisker walk — despite them combining for 17 interceptions last year. Drafting Thieneman filled a void of their own making while improving speed and aggressiveness at the spot.
Johnson, a tight ends coach at two different NFL stops, was among the league leaders in three tight end sets last year. Adding Roush gave the Bears the ability to do the same this year after losing Durham Smythe in free agency. Third tight ends are usually fringe veterans, though — Johnson, by contrast, wants to develop one with hopes he can become more.
Special teams coordinator Richard Hightower figures to use Thomas — and his 4.28 40-yard dash — as his primary kick returner. The Bears consider him more instinctive than another one-time Hightower returner, Velus Jones. They believe that the NFL’s new kickoff return rules have made the returner position more valuable than it’s ever been.
The Bears’ last pick, defensive tackle Jordan van den Berg, is the biggest flyer of all. The grandson of a world-class body-builder, he played rugby in South Africa until moving to America at age 10. If he can play the run well, the Bears would be thrilled.
The rest of the class has more high-level experience — center Logan Jones started 51 times at Iowa, cornerback Malik Muhammad started 41 games at Texas and linebacker Keyshaun Elliott started 34 times at New Mexico State and Arizona State. There’s an established starter in front of all three of them at their new job, though.
Despite questions from around the league, the Bears think they drafted players that fit their team. They saw it in the game film they watched.
“I think, normally, within the first 20 plays, you kind of see whether those traits show up,” Johnson said. “And if they don’t, then you keep looking.”
Friday, they’ll see what it looks like in person.
