Bear Digest

Bears already put Ben Johnson's genius to test one pick into draft

Analysis: After a calculated pick at No. 10, the Bears need to provide support for a first pick that as obviously one their new coach wanted for mismatch purposes.
Gene Chamberlain|
Ben Johnson's mismatches will be trying to put Colston Loveland wide open in the end zone.
Ben Johnson's mismatches will be trying to put Colston Loveland wide open in the end zone. | Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

The selection of Colston Loveland obviously indicates the Bears deemed the price of moving up for running back Ashton Jeanty too steep, and GM Ryan Poles said so in so many words.

Moving the other way proved impossible, as well.

No team was moving up to 10th overall and there wasn't a trade made after that pick until the Giants traded back into Round 1 from Round 2 so they could draft Jaxson Dart 25th.

Teams had no desire to trade up to 10th because the real blue chippers were gone before that point, and every draft analyst in the country pretty much had said this would be the case.

"We were looking at the numbers," Poles said. "We made phone calls, up and back, just to kind of see what the landscape was. Did it make sense for us or not? At the end of the day, the way that it fell, we felt really comfortable with how it worked out."

There is also no denying the talent of the player they wound up taking, or any doubt whatsoever of coach Ben Johnson's influence in making this pick. From the videos of Johnson in the Bears' war room, he couldn't have been happier.

Johnson is going to make this pick work out with plays designed to put defenses in a quandary between covering the fast, sure-handed tight end deeper or a wide receiver. In that regard, DJ Moore and Rome Odunze might come out the biggest winners from this move once Loveland establishes himself.

Johnson is going to put both Loveland and Cole Kmet on the field and it's going to force teams out of playing nickel packages. If not, they'll run on them. If a defense chooses to use nickel instead, and cover the tight ends as if they have the same pass-catching threat as wide receivers, then the player they find to play running back in the draft either Friday or Saturday is going to be extremely important.

Consider what a powerful back like Kaleb Johnson or Quinshon Judkins might do lining up to run against the light six-man box because the defense needs to be in a nickel to stop the move-tight end passing target. A human bulldozer running back like Cam Skattebo going against light boxes on defense could look like one 15-yard gain after another, or there would be clear sailing for D'Andre Swift.

Loveland provides more options to an offensive play caller who lives for this.
"When you turn on the tape, there are plays being made constantly," Poles said. "He's a guy that you can feel confident going to in critical situations. Now, we have a lot of them. That, again, puts a stress on a defense."

Still, it's all difficult to justify the selection of a tight end 10th overall.

Only three tight ends have now been drafted top 10 since the draft following the Bears' last Super Bowl appearance: Loveland, Eric Ebron and Kyle Pitts. That's not to say they can't provide value, they just don't usually provide the kind of target numbers teams find worth pursuing in the top part of the draft. You could usually find the same thing or something similar later.

Perhaps Brock Bowers is an indication of the future. Teams take tight ends like Bowers and now Loveland and Tyler Warren in the top half of Round 1 and use them more like wide receivers to combat the defensive trends. It' mismatches like this how Johnson gets his receivers so wide open for yards after the catch, something the Lions led the league at last year.

It's the lastest offensive step in the eternal cat-and-mouse game for play callers against defensive coordinators.

Now it's up to the Bears to make this look like a more worthwhile Day 1 pick by supporting the move with picks in Rounds 2 and 3 that fill more pressing needs at other positions like running back, defensive tackle or end, maybe even safety.

More than anything else, it will be up to Caleb Williams to make the Loveland pick worthwhile.

Everything they do is about Williams delivering, especially a first-round pick like this one. So they better get him another tackle just in case their current options fall through, and that's a real possibility.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.