Thread: Give An Early Grade of the Bears 2012 Draft

Originally Posted by bearsinhouston

It's funny. I was thinking about this very thing. I suspect that we will draft lower in the draft next year. We all know how hard it is to get a true difference maker at 19, much less at 30 (or hopefully 32).

IMO our needs are still OT, DT, S CB - and maybe DE (we could use one more in the rotation unless some one really steps up).

None of the really highly rated guys at ANY of those positions will be there at the end of the round. but you don't always need a highly rated guy, if you can pick 'em. That is why I am so intent on seeing how Emery's players do this year. I have to be honest. Although I like some of them, I wouldn't have picked them because I would have gone in a different direction - my point is not that I am right (I doubt that I am) it's just that since it is so far from wht i would have done, I can't judge. I just have to wait. If Emery has hit paydirt with these guys, I am going to be inclined to believe that drafting high won't be as big of an issue and that he can get what we need in the draft next year. If that doesn't happen, then he is going to have to be aggressive in FA again. Actually, I suspect that even if he doesn't like FA too much, he is going to have to use it again next year because we still need too many skill players to count on the draft. I'd say that if you get two in the draft you are doing good. To count on more than that is not a good bet.

After next year I suspect that as long as his picks do well, he can start going mostly BPA. It can certainly be done with low picks. NE, GB and NYG usually have lower picks and still get good players.

I haven't looked at footage of college football players for 2012-13 to know for sure, but I'm wondering what the offensive linemen class is shaping up to be like. It's hard to find a good linemen in the bottom part of the first round, and we're going to really have a difficult time drafting for depth next year since we don't have a third round pick due to the trade for Brandon Marshall to Miami. I would not be shocked if Emery trades down in the draft next year in order to get depth out of the draft since that is going to be something that is hard to come upon provided that we do well enough this year to finish among the top teams.

I won't care who we pick, provided we are picking @32.

Originally Posted by BossK

I won't care who we pick, provided we are picking @32.

I think that's a fairly agreeable assumption with most of the board, Boss. lol

Originally Posted by bearsinhouston

I also meant to add LB to that list of needs. Boy, when you take a 10,000 foot view of our continued needs this year along with the needs that we think (hope) Emery filled such as 2 WR, a good backup QB, a DE, - maybe TE and S - and I think I may still be forgetting someone ....

I'm amazed we were able to do as well as we did with as many areas that needed help as we had. There are teams in worse shape, but their records reflect that. We had plenty of areas that needed attention, yet we were still respectable until our b/u QB was exposed.

Kind of impressive actually....

You know, the way the season ended last year was for the best, houston. If we had finished the last six games with a 3-3 record and gotten into the playoffs with the #6 seed out of the NFC, we not only would have been destroyed in the Wild Card round, Jerry Angelo would still be general manager today, and we would have these great draft picks like we had in the draft this year. Yeah, we finish 8-8, but in reality, it was for the best because Jerry Angelo was fired and we finally got a GM into Halas Hall who is proactive and therefore gets things done.