Windy City Gridiron
The Chicago Bears didn’t send much in terms of representation to Boise, ID.
It’s Pro Day season, and the Chicago Bears are all over the country watching as many NFL Draft prospects as possible.
Wednesday was a busy day on the pro day circuit. Ohio State has several players who will go in the early rounds of this year’s draft, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that Ben Johnson, Ryan Poles, Dennis Allen, and others were all in Columbus to watch the Ohio State prospects.
But what was interesting was that there was another pro day on Wednesday, this one at Boise State, featuring running back Austin Jeanty.
Now, when you have multiple pro days across the country, you have to divide your resources. With so many prospects from Ohio State, it shouldn’t be shocking that the Bears had heavy representation there, but they had close to no representation in Boise.
According to someone I spoke with in attendance, the Bears had a regional scout at the Boise St pro day, but they did not have anyone else there; notably, running back coach Eric Bieniemy was not there.
Bieniemy has been involved in the pro day tours, he was recently at the Texas Longhorns’ pro day.
The source says that all 32 teams had some sort of representation to see Jeanty, but notably, Raiders GM John Spytek was there; he was the only GM in attendance.
Also, multiple members of the Saints organization were there and took Jeanty out to dinner the night before his pro day.
In comparing this to the Bears' previous first round picks under Ryan Poles, Poles had attended both the pro days of Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze last year. In 2023, Poles did not attend Tennessee’s pro day, but it’s worth noting that Darnell Wright was on the Senior Bowl team coached by Luke Getsy, so the Bears got a close look at Wright via that avenue.
The Bears do have a Top 30 visit scheduled with Jeanty so he is certainly under consideration by the Bears, and while you can never speak in absolutes during draft season, it is notable that the Bears did not invest much (including choosing not to send Bieniemy to Boise) to see or speak with Jeanty at his pro day.
It may also be that the Bears may expect that Jeanty will not reach them with the 10th pick. Based on pro day attendance, it certainly seems like the Raiders (at 6) and the Saints (at 9) may be two teams to watch in terms of who may take the Jeanty decision out of the Bears' hands.
There is a lot of time before the NFL Draft begins in 4 weeks, but just sharing some notable observations from draft season.
