Drafting Offense is for Pussies

Last seen working at a car repair shop

The Bears have a pretty bad track record of drafting offensive skill players early in the draft. My memory is scarred with the names Curtis Enis, Rashaan Salaam, Cade McNown and David Terrell. On the other hand, the Bears have an exceptionally good track record of drafting good defensive players both early and late in a given draft.

If we look at the top few picks from the last few drafts, it’s pretty obvious where our GM and scout team excel:

2006
2 42 Danieal Manning
2 57 Devin Hester

2005
1 4 Cedric Benson
2 39 Mark Bradley
4 106 Kyle Orton

2004
1 14 Tommie Harris
2 47 Tank Johnson
3 78 Bernard Berrian
4 110 Nathan Vasher

2003
1 14 Michael Haynes
1 22 Rex Grossman
2 35 Charles Tillman
3 68 Lance Briggs

2002
1 29 Marc Colombo

2001
1 8 David Terrell
2 38 Anthony Thomas

2000
1 9 Brian Urlacher
2 39 Mike Brown

With the exception of Michael Haynes, every defensive player picked in the first few rounds has been an absolute stud. (Hester was drafted as a DB by the way…) I mean, this is REALLY impressive.

Our best RB since Walter Payton was signed as a free agent (Thomas Jones) as was our most consistent WR (Muhammad). The best trade we’ve made in the last 10 years was sending our top WR at the time Marty Booker to the Fins for Ogunleye (which has panned out pretty well).

The obvious take-away here is that the Bears should draft only defensive players and trade or sign position players. Given that getting a QB on the open market is pretty tough, I understand the occasional QB pick although the odds for the Bears (and most teams for that matter) are pretty bad.

I say we take the beast on Michigan. (See http://luolsdong.blogspot.com/2007/12/going-long.html for my thoughts on this gigantic monster.)

And yes, this whole post is just an excuse to post another picture of this behemoth:

Tommy hungry. Tommy want wingy.