The Draft: Arrival

We have arrived. After a long, winding road pretending to care about baseball and golf, the NFL has returned to save humanity from the sports dead zone. It’s probably the worst draft of the decade but that doesn’t mean it’s any less awesome. For the Bears, this entire offseason has been defined by eating their vegetables so their spot at #25 will get them a player that will very much fit that mold; unlikely to be a star but a piece in rebuilding a defense that was putrid last year. The options at 25 have already been detailed, a trade seems unlikely, at least according to the rumors coming out. The most likely is the Bears make their pick and add a quality player. 

When it comes to moving within the draft, the second day is likely to be where the Bears maneuver. With picks 57 and 60 they’ll find themselves in a position to either grab a player from the bottom of a tier or reach into the next one. If I had to make any bold prediction, it would be that they are not going to make both of those picks. They have the 89th and 129th in the third and fourth rounds but then don’t have another pick on the books until the seventh round. They also traded next year’s fifth for Garrett Bradbury so something like trading out of #60 for a fifth this year and a third and fifth next year could be on the table. As discussed in the Take Purge, Ryan Poles has done a pretty solid job of navigating the draft, it’s one of the skills he does in fact have as a GM. It’s the picking good players that still remains in question.

I don’t do mock drafts. The reason the draft is fun is because of how unpredictable it is. However, if there is anything that can get close to predicting outcomes, it's Vegas. I used the odds on each pick from DraftKings for each pick to compile what the odds say happens 1-32 This is either the favorite to be taken at each spot or the highest remain players because the higher odds players were already "taken." Ultimately it doesn’t really matter which team takes which player, it just matters who is available at each spot. 

Pair that with the debut of the Brusveen Big Board! The top three tiers are represented for the first round, 39 players in total minus QBs. This will update throughout the draft but here is what it looks like for tonight.

Let’s do it.