Re-Grading Chicago Bears’ Past 5 Drafts
Published by Matt Eurich on April 24, 2015
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears
Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Pace has been busy adding free agents this offseason, but starting next week, he will have the opportunity to build the organization for the future when the NFL draft begins on April 30.
In order to build for the future, Pace would be wise to look back at the team’s previous drafts to determine what his predecessors did right and what they did wrong.
Over the past five drafts, former general managers Jerry Angelo and Phil Emery had far more misses than they had hits.
Angelo was fired in January 2012 after 11 seasons as the team’s general manager. He hit on guys like Charles Tillman, Lance Briggs, Tommie Harris and Devin Hester in his drafts, but his bad picks far outweighed his good picks.
After Angelo was fired, the Bears hired Emery in 2012, and he was fired following a disappointing 2014 season. In Emery’s three drafts, he selected two future Pro Bowlers in wide receiver Alshon Jeffery and guard Kyle Long, but he tended to lean toward players with high upside instead of those with proven talent.
To better understand Chicago’s recent draft history, we re-graded each of the team’s last five draft classes. Each class from 2010 to 2014 was given a letter grade between “A” and “F”.
Grades were based off how productive the class was, or has been, as a whole in Chicago, how many of those players are still currently with the organization and how much upside each class still has.
Here is our re-grading of the Chicago Bears’ past five drafts.
