Chapter 1: What are the highlights of the Bears' seven-player draft class?
Thanks, everybody. The Bears.
Matt, you've been a great partner to the radio show and the station with your embracing of go up and get it. Gawagie as a dedicated scouting trait, a term. You guys heard of Gawagie? Go up and get it, guys. I mean, you're the greatest partner we've ever had. I agree. That's why we sent you a hat. That's why we'll get you whatever merchandise you want and any sort of favors you want in Chicago.
Is it catching on at all? Is there anyone outside of you and me that understands Gawagie and sees the wisdom that we have found in it?
I think we just got to force it. We just got to force feed it to people. You know, we keep using it enough. And there's some guys this year, Malachi Fields from Notre Dame. He's a go up and get it guy. Edge didn't catch on in a day. It wasn't, you know, people were calling defensive ends edge players. That's true. In a day. You just got to, you know, keep driving at home.
And I'll do my part to make sure that happens.
God love you. If there's anybody else, anybody at PFF, I mean, I don't know. Because that ought to be something that an analytics site, I mean, maybe Kwesi would have been into it if it had a number attached to it. I feel like we can get Matt doing it. We can ask Kalen Kaler to start using it, I think. Like, really just talk to our NFL peeps. Yeah. Carmen, have her start saying it.
I think that we can get a movement going if we do it that way.
It's grassroots, guys. It's grassroots. We're not buying likes over here. We're building this thing.
Damn right we are. Let's talk more about the draft and with our buddy Matt Miller, who joins us now on the Score Hotline, which is brought to you by Pottawatomie Casino and Hotel, the Midwest's best casino. Great. Matt, thanks so much for joining us. How did you feel about the Bears draft?
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Chapter 2: How did the Bears' draft decisions impact their future?
And we saw a lot of teams do that. The Rams have six tight ends on their roster right now. Teams are going to be loading up at the tight end position. We saw it throughout this draft. If you don't believe that there's value in having two and three tight ends, go look at how the rest of the NFL drafted over the past three days.
I'll tell you, teams believe that they're going to be running two tight ends the majority of the time and three tight ends a good amount of the time.
Well, yeah, it's interesting. Tons of tight ends going, and Lawrence said that in segment one, the Bears getting out front of a trend in the NFL. How often is Colston Loveland even going to be lined up at tight end? I wonder how Colston might start there, but then he'll move and go into the slot. And you can do that with Cole, too, a little bit. Yeah, you can. You can play some games.
This kid is the grunt wide tight end who will be next to a tackle just about every time he's out there, right?
Right, exactly. You know how in fantasy football you've got your quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end, then you have the flex positions? We have to start thinking about guys like Colston Loveland, Sam Laporta. They're a flex player. They're not going to line up next to the right tackle in a three-point stance and then go block someone. They are being moved all across the offense.
And I think sometimes we get so rigid in our thinking about, you have to have a tight end, you have to have a tight end. Yeah, exactly. You do. You have to have 11 players out on the field and you need someone that can help block in the run game. It could be a size mismatch, but it's moving the players around.
And that's the versatility you get with these players, these guys that makes it so exciting. And so when you envision an offense that is, you've got two running backs that are downhill guys. When you have now the option to have a big receiver in Roma Dunze, a speed guy in Luther Burton, you're going to have Loveland playing all over the place.
You're going to have Komet lined up, you know, at least in an H-back position or an F position a lot of the time. And then, yeah, when you want to go short yardage and you just want to run the ball down someone's throat and play old-school Chicago Bears offense, that's when you bring Sam Roush in. But we're also talking about a mid-round pick, right?
If folks are getting carried away about a mid-round pick from a team that beat the Packers in the playoffs ā we're probably losing focus on what matters, right? A mid-round pick should be a role player. And that's exactly what he's going to be.
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Chapter 3: What role will Dylan Thieneman play in the Bears' defense?
But you would have had to go way up to get him. I think he went 35, right? I don't have my board in front of me. But you had to go way, way up to get a player like that. So I don't know that there was a spot where you say, let's, you know, come up the board this aggressively. to get an edge.
And I think it also, it probably points to a team that maybe there's some more internal comfort with the young guys than we believe there is on the outside. And I think that's where you have to look at it and say, okay, do they think that some of these players that have been drafted in the past are going to be that guy that can, you know, opposite sweat can be that guy. You know what?
Dale was brought in a year ago as a, Big time free agent signing. So the hope has to be that they believe the arrow is still pointing up on these guys where they don't have to aggressively give up the assets and the capital to move up to get a TJ Parker, who you hope is a six sack a year type player who's going to be really good against the run.
Why didn't Malik Muhammad go earlier? Because with his profile, it felt like a guy that maybe would go at the end of three. This is the tall corner that the Bears got from Texas.
Yeah, from Texas, yeah. You know, I think, guys, excuse me, I think the thing is he didn't play as fast as he timed. He timed at 4-4-2 when that happened. I was shocked. And I'm a guy that watches every Texas game. Malik Muhammad is a zone corner. That's where the length shows up. He's six foot tall. He's a little bit light at 182, but the length shows up on tape.
And the playmaking ability, he started as a true freshman week one, starting in Texas. That says a lot about the talent there. I actually thought he declined a little bit this past year in terms of the playmaking ability. You know, he didn't have some of the guys around him that have been there in the past. The secondary this year for Texas wasn't as good. Michael Taft had a down year.
Johnny Barron's gone. They lost some core players back there. So I think it showed up for him this year. But to steal him in round four, I think that's a really, really good value. Someone that probably should have been a top 100 pick. And your hope is that he can be coached up, right?
That you can turn that height, the length, and the speed into somebody that can be a playmaker instead of just ā He was a shadow cover guy in college instead of a playmaker, especially last year. Freshman year, he was more of a playmaker. This past year, just played a little bit too off at times.
So tell people why Jordan Vandenberg is an exciting pick in round six, 32nd pick of round six. The Bears get the Georgia Tech defensive tackle.
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Chapter 4: Why did some analysts consider certain Bears draft picks as reaches?
We talked about this prior to the draft, that if he is somehow going to fall into your lap, you run to the podium, you take him. And you're all up in arms. It's a great pick. It's a pick that I had Thienemann graded right next to Caleb Downs. I'll tell you what, if Caleb Downs did not fall to Dallas ā I think that's where he would have ended up. I think that's how high he would have went.
Great value for the Bears. But after that, day two to me, when you look at it, I'm into creating the 2023 draft right now. I go three years in, you evaluate the draft class, and I find often that day two is where a lot of teams win and lose the draft. And in this draft class particular for the Chicago Bears, they too had a few head scratchers.
I'm not into saying they're good picks or bad picks or even grading them at this point. They're simply just head scratchers. Logan Jones, the center from Iowa, is a kid that Probably could have been had a bit later, but if you didn't think he was going to be there in the third round, sure, I'm fine with the pick, but I'm not sure he's going to be a factor here in year two.
I say the same in year one. I say the same thing about the tight end from Stanford, Sam Roush, and even Xavion Thomas. Other than a returner, what is he going to give to you in 2026? And I think that's where Bears fans might feel a little unstable. Are we going to get immediate dividends from these guys, or is this really about 2027 and 2028?
He is David Syvertson from RLADS and he joins us on the Plumbers 911 hotline. Plumbing emergency call 1-833-PLUM-911. Local 130 plumbers get the job done right the first time. And David, you know, we knew that the edge rusher class in particular It was kind of thin on the top shelf guy, the great guy that was obvious. But there was deemed to be some quality depth there.
And the Bears, you know, while they need defensive line help and maybe still could add some free agent help there, for them to turn offense in that day two was... was a bit of a head-scratcher for everyone. And the defensive tackles, if you were going to get one, you had to move really quick because there weren't just a ton of them.
Yeah, and that's one thing that if you're going to try to get into, hey, did the Bears draft well or not? Again, we're not going to know for a few years. One thing I don't think they really read well was they didn't read the draft well. They didn't anticipate who was going to come off the board. The defensive linemen, I felt like they were coming off the board every other pick. And at some point,
you might that you have that extra pick you might want to use some of that ammo if you look at your defensive line and say hey we're just not good enough right now we have to go get a player and that's what a lot of the teams that draft well i mean philadelphia howie rosen the guy reads the draft like a book i mean he just knows what's going to happen he gets ahead of it and stays ahead of it and while i don't think the bears passed on a lot of edge talent when they were on the clock per se um
They did pass on a few defensive tackles that I do think I would have been a little bit happier with rather than going for Logan Jones and Sam Roush in the second round. I think there was some talent there that really could have helped out, especially on the run defense. But the edge defenders, those guys came off the board in a hurry, and you saw how many trades there were.
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Chapter 5: How does Logan Jones fit into the Bears' offensive line strategy?
That's just a guess. That's great stuff, David. Really appreciate your time.
Great work during the draft. Thanks for all your help. Yeah, we really appreciate it. No problem, guys. We'll talk soon. Thank you.
Okay, that is David Syverston from Arlitz.
Watch Matt Bowen. Bowen's a tough guy. Matt Bowen. And it's intercepted by Matt Bowen. A lot of time. Coverage is good with Matt Bowen.
Seven-year NFL veteran. Well, it's coming from Bowen, and he knocks it out. The Redskins fall on top of it. Matt Bowen's been the guy applying all the pressure.
Coach for IC Catholic Football.
Matt Bowen, a man from Glen Ellyn, Illinois. He's very active. NFL writer and analyst for ESPN. Both Thienemann and McNeil-Warren are interchangeable, and that's the term I use for safety in Dennis Allen's defense. You have to be able to play free, you have to be able to play strong, you have to roll down over the slot at times.
I think McNeil-Warren is more of a violent, physical striker on contact. I think you see that he has a much larger tackling range because of his frame and length of the point of attack. But if you watch Thienemann on tape... especially when he's coming out of quarters. He runs the alley, he's urgent, and he will attack.
With the 25th pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, the Chicago Bears select Dylan Dienemann, defensive back, Oregon.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of drafting Sam Roush for the Bears' offense?
One, you have to start with the athleticism or the athletic traits. What he did at the NFL Combine doesn't translate to what you see on film. And it does. We talk about the range over the top, the speed through the alleys, the ability to leap and play the ball at the highest point. That's big in the defensive back down the field to create on the ball production.
He's a solid tackler like we talked about last week. He's not an overly violent striker at the point of attack. From a coaching perspective, I don't care about that. Can he get the ball carrier on the ground? Can he do it at a consistent rate? Dienerman can do that. I think ultimately when you look at Dennis Allen's defense is the ability to play both free and strong.
That gives Dennis Allen a lot of flexibility within the game plan and what he can do once the ball is snapped. More coverage in the skies, the ability to spin late, to cover down over a slot, to cover down over a tight end, to rotate back to the post. It does a lot of things for your defense. So, The scheme fit works. The athletic traits are there.
You just drafted an immediate starter in round one.
Man, it's exciting, Matt, and exciting to talk to you with your knowledge of what we just watched with the Bears and Dennis Allen's defense and all of it. But speak to the two of them together, Kobe Bryant and Dylan Thienemann, and how the Bears are, if anything, out front of a trend around the league at this moment.
Well, I think you're out front because everyone wants to play two deep coverage. That's what you want to start in, Speaks, and everything builds out from there. You know, if you watch the draft, a lot of analysts call it the shell coverage, right? So the quarterback comes to the line of scrimmage, looks like two deeper quarters, and then everything changes post-snap.
That's when the picture changes. And with two safeties who have interchangeable traits, it gives you an advantage because you don't know who's rolling down, who's rolling back to depth. Both of them can play if you're bringing all-out pressure. They can play over a slot or play over a tight end and flat-foot read and drive downhill in the football.
And more importantly, you look at Bryant in his last year, I think he had seven picks. He had ball production in college. You have two safeties who will take the ball away. And last year, the Bears only had one.
I know that this position means a lot to you, and being that you can see it from multiple levels of football, there was a time, Matt, where you were one or the other. How do you convince the guys that are athletic and maybe athletic enough to play wide receiver, like be a slot guy as a wide receiver, how do you convince them to be physical enough to
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