Windy City Gridiron
The Bears are rolling, and much has been made about how the offense has taken a massive step forward. It’s hard to look at this success without acknowledging the contributions of their rookie class.
For your review:
This class is not without initial misses, but you can say that about any class. However, the four main contributors in Loveland, Burden, Trapilo, and Monangai have completely reshaped the future of this Bears offense by giving them a projected starter with Pro Bowl potential at four different positions.
Looking at the history of the Bears draft, it’s hard to find an instance where you had this much success, especially out of the gate and especially in recent years.
Let’s get one thing straight before twenty people do it for me in the comments…it is impossible to adequately evaluate this draft class, 16 games into their careers, against other draft classes that have been retired for years (and decades).
So please, sort this into the “fun banter” category and not the “Mongo Peanut is a knucklehead” category.
Now — what do I think? I think that as it currently stands, this draft class has already accomplished more than draft classes like the Gabe Carimi/Stephen Paea/Chris Conte draft of 2011 or the Rashaan Salaam/Pat Riley/Sean Harris draft of 1995 (though Punter Todd Sauerbrun had a nice career). Still, the Bears can already hang their hat on this draft class not being considered a bust.
So where does it stand right now? I would say that it’s probably somewhere in the top 30-35 draft classes in the Bears history if you were to stop play right now. They don’t yet have a Harlon Hill, Lance Briggs, or Mike Singletary to claim, so it’s hard to argue that they can sniff the top ten at the moment, and that’s fine — they have long careers left.
Still, where do we think they will eventually rank all-time? Personally, I think they have the makings of a top 8 draft class all-time. That might seem absurd given how early into their careers we are, but I think that both Loveland and...