Bears' 2017 draft picks making a strong first impression on Matt Nagy

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Plenty of the focus of the Bears’ offseason has been on the additions made this year — Allen Robinson, Taylor Gabriel, Trey Burton, Anthony Miller, James Daniels, Roquan Smith, etc. Ryan Pace has boasted about the strong communication between him and Nagy on the team’s free agent signings and draft picks; all of those guys, especially the offensive ones, are scheme fits for Nagy’s system. 

But how about the guys who are already here, who weren't brought in to specifically fit Nagy's offense? Let's look at, for this, 2017's draft picks. 

We’ve known Nagy has been impressed with Mitch Trubisky ever since scouting him during the lead-up to last year’s draft. But Adam Shaheen, Eddie Jackson and Tarik Cohen are all making their first impressions on their new head coach this spring, and so far, it sounds like those efforts are going well. 

Here’s what Nagy said about Cohen after Wednesday’s OTA practice:

“He’s actually the one kid on this team that I knew had a lot of talent, but he comes out here and runs every route the right way, catches most balls and he doesn’t make a lot of mistakes,” Nagy said. “You see how he is in the meetings rooms: he listens to the play and when he comes out here how serious he is and he knows how to have fun. 

“He’s a player that, for me, you get giddy about, but you also know you got other players too. You can feel where I’m at on that.”

Cohen was by far the Bears’ most exciting player in 2017, scoring a touchdown four different ways (rushing, receiving, passing, returning) while being one of the few consistent sparks for a largely-moribund offense. Of course Nagy is “giddy” about a guy as versatile and athletic, with the work ethic to back it up, as Cohen.

But Cohen isn’t the only 2017 fourth-round pick to catch Nagy’s eye. Jackson has done the same as another ascending talent observed by his head coach. 

“A fourth-round kid that reminds me of a player that can do it all,” Nagy said. “He can hit, he has great ball skills, he has good speed and is smart. As a rookie last year for him coming into his own and this year being a second year guy to play, we want him to get a little bit better from last year. I was impressed with him.”

Both Cohen and Jackson played in all 16 games last year and were heavily-used components on their respective sides of the ball (though Cohen’s use may have still been too limited). Shaheen represents more of a blank slate for Nagy, as he played fewer snaps than Zach Miller, Dion Sims and Daniel Brown and only was targeted 14 times in 2017 (though he still led the Bears in touchdowns). 

So perhaps more than Cohen and Jackson, Shaheen’s first impression with Nagy was important. 

“He's bigger than I originally thought he was,” Nagy said. “And then his radius that he, his catching radius is probable I'd put in the same category, he has very natural hands. He’s a guy that fits are offense very well and so now it's a matter of how fast is he going to learn it and just figure out the details and just the ins and outs of the different routes we run.”

The over-arching point here is this: The Bears’ success, or lack thereof, in 2018 will be determined more by the guys who were already here than the guys who just got here. Growth from Cohen, Jackson, Shaheen and — of course — Trubisky will be pivotal to whether or not the Bears play a meaningful game in December for the first time in far too long. 

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