This was a good analysis. I can easily see 3-5 players jumping into the blue tier during the course of the season. There’s a lot of upward mobility on this roster. A bunch of future starters are in the waiting.

The Zavion hype is fascinating. Seems like most people viewed him as a huge reach two months ago, but he’s done nothing but impress. This is NOT Velus Jones 2.0.

Good article, Adam, and I trust your time off was well spent relaxing, having family time, and doing a little work on Bears stuff.
I would like to see some of the more analytical people on CHGO BEARS do an extended examination of the last Bears draft and particularly on “surprise picks” where the less-studied fans puzzled because Poles, Johnson and company passed on seemingly easy selections at positions of need. My guess? The Bears cared more about football I.Q., commitment to excellence, dedication to improvement, and willingness to work really, really hard, and that made it mandatory for them to pass up players many people thought were the “easy” picks at a given slot in the draft. You understand a basic tenet of a Bears fan: IBWT: In Ben We Trust. So do I, and I texted Gregg on Twitter immediately after the draft and said just this, hoping to talk him off his “we need a left offensive tackle” and “we need an edge rusher” ledge. What those moves said to me was that D.A., Poles, and Ben believe in Booker and in the quickness and speed they’ve added on defense. I think D.A. believes he can scheme a pass rush on most weeks, and as you have repeatedly pointed out: teams that pay an arm and a leg for an edge rusher don’t win titles. It’s optimistic, even foolhardy to think D.A. will have success at this, but there’s one thing in the Bears favor. D.A. has a proven history of being able to do just this. IBWT, Adam.