First-Round Studies Reveal Safest Bears Option

The Bears need tackles, defensive ends and tackles and cornerbacks and studies of Round 1 reveal one of those positions to be more dependable than others.

The numbers favor the Bears if they're looking for an offensive tackle at No. 9 or anywhere else in Round 1.

If you're a guy who plays the percentages, you'll like the talk of a blocker for Justin Fields with the first Bears pick.

It's probably not as likely they'll succeed if they're looking for an edge rusher or defensive tackle in the first round.

The33rdTeam.com did a study of Round 1 hits or misses from 2013-17. Six years ago seems a while to go back but the definition of a hit is a player who made it through his first contract with his first team and signs an extension with them, or one who gets traded before the first contract ends and signs with the team that traded for him. So it's rather difficult to get much more recent considering first contracts for first-round picks are five years.

The study found 17 tackles were drafted in Round 1 and 10 succeeded, for a 58.8% hit rate. It was the third-highest success rate, but really second highest among those with a reasonable sample size. The center success rate was highest at 66.7% but that's because there were only three of them taken in Round 1 and two succeeded.

The success rates for edge rushers was much lower, at .435 (10 of 23). More teams took edge rushers or cornerbacks (23) in Round 1. Cornerbacks hits were at a 39.1% rate.

The defensive tackle position is another the Bears could consider and it was just a 35.3% rate (6 of 17).

If a team is looking for a safety in Round 1, they probably should get another general manager. Safeties hit on a 15.4% rate if taken in Round 1.

The Bears have assigned jersey numbers for their newcomers:

2 DJ Moore
15 PJ Walker
17 Ryan Anderson
18 Robert Tonyan
20 Travis Homer
29 D'Onta Foreman
49 Tremaine Edmunds
53 T.J. Edwards
55 Dylan Cole
64 Nate David
94 Rasheem Green
95 DeMarcus Walker
97 Andrew Billings

— Chris Emma (@CEmma670) April 14, 2023

The study had a reasonable number of safeties taken in the first round, too. There were 13 but only two made it to that next contract with their draft team or the team that wanted them.

Bears fans pushing for Jaxon Smith-Njigba should know wide receivers in that period succeeded on a 38.1% rate (8 of 21).

Many wide receivers end up going to another team in free agency and this would count as a miss even if they signed for a big amount of money. Christian Kirk is an example. No one would call him a miss just because he left the Cardinals for Jaguars for big cash.

However, if you're the drafting team you've decided he isn't worth keeping at that rate. So in that sense it is a miss—the player wasn't good enough to keep.

Admittedly, it is a strictly defined sense of success.

The Riot Report does interesting numbers studies and did one going back even longer, from 2011 through 2017. They were measuring something similar. They were measuring busts, or anyone who didn't make it the first five years of the contract.

The highest percentage for success in that seven years was by offensive tackles (71%). Next highest was running backs and centers (67%). But again, the center total was small.

Defensive tackles are at 52% success and edge rushers at 53%.

The wide receiver success rate was even worse for seven years than for the five years in the other study, at 34%.

This study lumped cornerbacks in with safeties and that's rather silly. Considering how safeties were only 2-for-13 in the other study, they drag down cornerbacks, who are still a reasonable position to take.

Bleacher Report conducted longer, more extensive research over a 25-year period from long ago, ending in 2010, and the game has changed quite a bit since those days. So its relevance might not be as great.

Still, they found 19% of tackles chosen in Round 1 attain All-Pro status and 36.9% make the Pro Bowl at least once.

What was interesting about that study was over those 25 years the safeties drafted in Round 1 were much more likely to be hits. Apparently they don't make safeties like they used to as 25.7% of first-round safeties made All-Pro, second only to linebackers (26.4%).

The tackle percentage was fifth highest and defensive line spots lower at 16.5%.

The trend to be found from all of these is the Bears are better off looking for Peter Skoronski, Paris Johnson or Darnell Wright than Tyree Wilson, Alex Van Ness, Calijah Kancey or Jalen Carter. 

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