My Bears Mock Draft

And Why I’m Not Sharing It

And Why YOU Should Do a Mock Draft

I don’t care if you share it.

The fact of the matter is that mock drafts are fun ways to get to know some of the players who are eligible, and who are ranked around the area of the draft where your team has picks. Run the draft at the fastest speed, PFF and PFN both seem pretty patient when you get interrupted by the rest of your like, even in fast mode.

They are also great places to discover how amazingly subjective the process is, and fast mode lets you run through enough drafts to realize that you can’t just pick the same guy every time, because that guy isn’t always there.

At the very least, have a few goes on PFN and PFF both, just to see how much difference of opinion there is between different rankings. The guy you liked at pick 71 who may or may not be gone by 71 on one site may be there in the fifth or sixth round on the other site. You’ll also see that trade offers can be very different based on what happens in the draft. A team who is starving in one scenario may have a pat hand in the next.

The obvious mathematical fact is that NO mock draft anywhere ever really matters, unless you want to measure how close it comes to matching all the other proverbial broken clocks in the wild guess business. If no two people evaluate the same, guessing which choice a specific GM and HC might prefer requires a crystal ball and a ton of good luck.

The thing is, most Mock Draft stories aren’t about what a particular HC and GM is likely to do. No, Mock Draft stories come in a rather predictable bunch of formulas. Replace “My” with any entity which ever shares a Mock Draft, and remember that numbers are always variable, and here is every Mock draft story formula, and how to not get suckered by them:

1. My Latest Chicago Bears Mock Draft and 5 guys the Bears MUST Draft! Notice how the author always assumes absolute knowledge of what is best for the team. Read other stories to see if the prospect sounds like a good match for the “type” the coach seems to like. Tread lightly between the trolls on both sides of every issue…ok, that’s everywhere, welcome to the post pandemic world.
2. My Latest Chicago Bears Mock Draft and 5 Guys the Bears MUST Avoid! Just like number 1, only instead of a list of “missed picks”, they are compiling a list of “picks made” so that they have a sword to rattle when the disaster they prophesied comes to pass.
3. My Latest Chicago Bears Mock Draft and 5 Trades the Bears MUST make! OK this one is a hornet’s nest:
   1. Trade ups [includes trading future picks for more picks now]: This Kool Aid is poison, because the GM and HC have sworn that this is not the season to do that, and they have heard about the previous guy’s promise to draft a QB every year…and they’re not about to reprise the mistake.
   2. Trade downs: Same Kool Aid as at the top of the list. I trade down early and often and get all the guys and future picks I can, focusing on rounds 2-5, mid 3rd to early 4th being the sweet spot. Beware of trade downs that don’t carry a premium.
   3. Trades involving players: Major BS Warning! Beware of Crazy High Prices! Beware of Fire Sales! Beware of Old Guys with Injury Problems! Beware the Legendarily Foolish Trading Partner…your odds are better chasing bigfoot.
4. My Latest Chicago Bears Mock Draft and How It [Helps/Hurts] [Insert existing player name here] Beware the players who aren’t likely to be available. More importantly, beware the mindset that it is just a matter of tossing these two or three guys and getting that two or three guys and we are ready to go deep in the playoffs. That Kool Aid is highly toxic in a rebuild year

There are not many Mock Draft stories that won’t fit one of those categories. just remember that they are all just creative fiction, always coming from minds with less professional experience and people supported by smaller support staffs than the professionals who make the actual decisions. 

And even at the highest levels within the profession, opinions vary widely, and no one is ever always right, and even the blindest squirrels find a nut here and there. So remember that nothing is cut and dried…except the fact that this draft is not going to be enough to make this team look like a contender, and that was never this year’s plan.

This year’s plan was always, since Ryan Poles First Day, to lay a foundation on top of which it is possible to begin building a contender. Trying to be a contender this year would just give us another cycle of “Flail, Fail, Rinse, and Repeat”. Having just done that once with Emery and twice with Pace, I can think of nothing more toxic than to pretend to contend this year.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m dying to see what this looks like on the field. With all these people moaning that we’ve gone from a bunch of nobodies to a worse bunch of nobodies, I am still sold on seeing a bunch of nobodies who know their job and how they are supposed to do it. The last few years looked like a bunch of guys who had no clue how to be successful, and in my book, that means blame the coach.

“Nobodies With a Clue” may not be the flashiest slogan, but I need to believe it will be more fun to watch. Bear Down and Pass the Halas Hall Kool Aid!