Bears general manager Ryan Pace said Wednesday that they have identified seven players deemed to be of sufficient quality to be worth the No. 7 pick when the 2015 draft opens Thursday evening. But that doesn’t mean the Bears are locked into staying at No. 7.
The Bears have talked to teams above and below them in the draft order, as teams do every year. And while they have seven they’re comfortable with, those players are not all graded equally, meaning that someone dropping unexpectedly could have them on the phone to make a deal, including on to move higher.
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“There’s a chance we could move up,” Pace said, adding, “there’s a chance we could move up or back, so all those options are out there. We’ve talked to teams in front of us; we’ve talked to teams behind us. Doing our due diligence is necessary because you just don’t know. We have those seven guys stacked and ranked. If our No. 1 guy was falling there’s a chance we would go up.”
Pace laughed off questions as to what positions in particular are in those seven players, except to emphasize, “if we stay at seven, there’s seven players we’ve identified that we feel really, really good about. I know there’s going to be a player that we can select that’s going to be there that we feel really good about, that we’re excited about.”
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Part of the draft process included laying out multiple scenarios for the picks ahead of the Bears. Every team does a number of mock drafts and “I feel certain with how we have them,” Pace said. “There will be couple things every year that surprise you. And hey, when that happens, that’s a good thing, because there’s now players being pushed down to us.
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“I feel confident and certain where we have our guys stacked in front of us. As far as projecting what other teams will do, who knows?”