Supplemental Red Zone Prospect

The Bears receiver corps might look complete with seven solid candidates and several potential challengers.

However, the upcoming supplemental draft holds two possible additions for the Bears, who might actually have the first pick.

Already well known as an entry was Purdue wide receiver Milton Wright. The draft will also have another receiver in it, one coached in 2021 by Deion Sanders and already familiar to a few Bears players.

Jackon State's 6-foot-5, 190-pound Malichi Wideman is the second player in the supplemental draft. The wide receiver is coming off a year when he made only three receptions for 49 yards and a touchdown in six games for Jackon State.

As his height suggests, he is a red zone threat with 12 of his 34 catches in 2021 at Jackson State going for TDs. He had 540 yards that season.

The reason he is well known to a few Bears players is he was a transfer before 2021 from Tennessee to Jackson State. Darnell Wright and Velus Jones Jr. both were at Tennessee playing on offense when Wideman left the program. As a freshman in 2020, Wideman got into six Vols games and made one 24-yard catch.

Wideman is an outstanding all-around athlete and played guard on Jackson State's basketball team in 2021-22, averaging 5.6 points and 2.4 rebounds.

Scouts raved about Wideman's ability to track the football the year he did make 12 TD catches.

Like with Wright, there were academic concerns in Wideman's past and that explains his participation in the supplemental draft and also his limited playing time last season. He had been suspended during the 2022 season for academic reasons and in the spring was unable to remain eligible. It's the reason he wasn't available for the regular draft and applied for the supplemental draft.

Wright, a 6-3, 195-pound receiver, had 99 catches for 1,325 yards and 10 TDs in three Purdue seasons but wasn't able to be eligible for the 2022 season and then failed to become eligible again in spring of 2023. So he is also in the supplemental draft.

The draft is July 11 and it isn't run like the regular draft. Teams are put into three groups for a weighted lottery that is based on their records in 2022. The Bears, with the worst record at 3-14, would have the best mathematical chances at the first pick.

However, if a team uses a first-round pick on one of these two players or anyone else who enters it, they then lose a first-rounder from the 2024 draft. If they see him as a second-rounder, they lose a second-round pick in 2024.

The supplemental draft is more of a blind auction than a draft. Teams basically submit a blind bid for what round they would take a particular player. The league then sorts through the results to determine which team took the player first based on their spots from the weighted lottery.

Teams do not have to bid on the players.

The only Bears player ever taken in a supplemental draft was BYU running back Harvey Unga, as a seventh-rounder in 2010.

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