LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — It’s a good thing Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson is regarded as one of the NFL’s elite offensive minds.
It’s possible his team could need to put up 30 or more points a game to match last season’s win output after the Bears went through the draft and virtually ignored one of the team’s greatest perceived weaknesses.
The Bears failed to draft a defensive end and the only defensive lineman they took was South African Jordan van
den Berg of Georgia Tech in the sixth round. That came after the defense finished 27th and 28th the last two years against the run and had only 35 sacks last year.
General manager Ryan Poles said drafting late in rounds made trading up to find an edge rusher difficult, especially in the second round.
“When we made that turn into two, we had a good sense through our research that that was going to be a hot spot at the very top of two,” Poles said. “It wasn’t really possible to get up that high without giving up a ton. And at the end of the day, we would just follow the board.”
At least they came away with a potential starting safety in the first round. Oregon's Dillon Thieneman could play alongside Coby Bryant.
“It’s rare that you see a safety as a guy that you really worry about and yet it was pretty quickly that you could turn on his tape and realize that he’s always around the football,” Johnson said.
That was it on defense until the Bears took Texas cornerback Malik Muhammad in the fourth round. In the fifth, it was defense again with Arizona State linebacker Keyshaun Elliott.
The Bears didn't pick a defensive player on Friday. Poles drafted Iowa center Logan Jones in the second round and in the third, he took and Stanford tight end Sam Roush and LSU wide receiver Zavion Thomas.
If Chicago must rely on offense for wins, Johnson can try to make use of Thomas’ 4.28-second speed for the 40-yard dash, or three-tight end sets with Roush joining Cole Kmet and Colston Loveland.
It’s more weaponry for quarterback Caleb Williams.
“So I think it gives him a lot of versatility to work with and we can dictate some terms to the defense and make sure that we’re always attacking,” Johnson said.
Poles couldn’t find draft help at edge rusher despite making numerous trades.
The Bears traded their second-round pick (No. 60) to Tennessee for picks in the third and fifth rounds. They swapped fourth- and fifth-round picks with Arizona and then traded both seventh-round picks to Buffalo for a sixth-rounder.
Kmet had to be wondering about job security after the Bears picked Roush, one season after Loveland was taken 10th overall. Johnson uses two-tight end and three-tight end packages extensively, so Kmet appears to be in their plans.
“Cole’s locked in,” Poles said. “I mean, even contract-wise, he is locked in. We’re always going to compete, it’s not like you just show up and your spot’s your spot. But we feel really good about Cole’s position on this team, his role, his leadership.”
Georgia Tech’s van den Berg learned about American football as a child in South Africa by being a movie fan and watching “Invincible,” the Mark Wahlberg film about former Eagles player Vince Papale, a bartender who made it to the NFL at age 30.
“I had that on DVD so I would watch that over and over when I was a kid and I really fell in love with the sport,” van den Berg said.
The 310-pound defensive tackle already has made good use of NIL money. He owns a laundromat.
“My dad has always preached to me that life-changing money is only life-changing money if you put it to use,” van den Berg said.
Roush has NFL bloodlines through his great uncle, former Rams great Merlin Olsen. His grandfather, Phil Olsen, also played for the Rams. Phil Olsen was the fourth pick overall in 1970 and told his grandson about a different draft experience than what players enjoy now.
“He got a call,” Roush said. “I think he was at his mom’s house. And my grandma, someone told her that he had gotten drafted.
“She didn’t know what that meant. She thought he was going to war. Thankfully, he wasn’t.”
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