Windy City Gridiron
The 2025 NFL Scouting Combine is here and with free agency two weeks away, fans we’ll have a better opportunity to zone in on the draft before a hectic few weeks of signings, trades, etc. In Aaron Leming’s first mock draft of the season, he tried to project a free agency plan and how this year’s draft will supplement that.
With the conclusion of Super Bowl 59, the 2024 NFL season officially came to a close. It marked the long eight-month wait until Week 1 for most NFL fans. For others, this signals the beginning of the offseason. The Chicago Bears and their fans have learned to enjoy the offseason, where they’ve been more interesting than when meaningful games are played. With a combined 15 wins over their last three seasons, changes were needed after their (5-12) finish.
New head coach Ben Johnson and his recently assembled coaching staff should bring new ideas to the Windy City. Although the directive will be apparent during the acquisition period, it will be interesting to see how this new coaching staff evaluates the current roster. The primary focus of the offseason should revolve around both sides of the trenches but don’t sleep on a few splash moves in other areas.
Assistant General Manager Ian Cunningham’s immediate future in Chicago has now been resolved after the Jacksonville Jaguars named James Gladstone their new general manager. Although many considered Cunningham the favorite for the job, the Bears will not receive a fifth pick in the Top 100. For now, we’ll use Over The Cap’s projected draft order, which accounts for all compensatory picks around the league. I used a combination of big boards for the Top 100. I favored Bleacher Report’s Top 175 for the early rounds and leaned heavily on Pro Football Focus’ extensive list for the later rounds. These rankings will drastically change over the next two months, but for now, I had to work with this to keep myself “honest”.
It’s worth noting that free agency is exactly weeks away, which will change the team’s needs. All we can do for now is work with what we’ve got. I’ll try to use some projections regarding how I believe the Bears will attack the draft. Especially this early in the process.
It feels like the Bears are stuck in a little bit of no man’s land regarding the 10th overall pick in April’s draft. While I expect that free agency will help define their top needs, there’s not really one player that stands out to me as “the pick” this early in the process.
For the sake of this process, I’m projecting that the Bears will spend two considerable free agent resources on the interior line. Whether that’s two guards or a combination of a guard and center is TBA. A lot of that should find clarity in the coming weeks when we get a better idea of who will hit the free-agent market.
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