Matt Nagy met with the media at Halas Hall on Sunday to recap his first rookie minicamp as head coach and spoke highly of sixth-round pick Kylie Fitts, who the Chicago Bears drafted to help enhance the pass rush.
"He's a kid that has a good motor," Nagy said. "He can bend well, he accelerates well, and then he has nice size, too."
Fitts (6-4, 263 pounds) checks the size and speed boxes usually required to be a draft pick, but his production in college was limited. He had only 4.5 sacks the last two seasons after injuries limited him to a total of just nine games. In 2015, Fitts finished with seven sacks in 12 games played.
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"He's a really good kid that's putting it all together," Nagy said. "From day one to today in the red zone, you could see that he's who we thought he was."
The Bears think Fitts can be a productive situational pass rusher who will, at least initially, complement Leonard Floyd and Aaron Lynch. If he can stay healthy -- something both Floyd and Lynch have struggled to do in their careers -- a bigger role is within his reach.
Fitts ran an impressive 4.69 40-yard dash at the NFL combine and proved he's a strong guy with 31 reps of 225 pounds on the bench press. It wasn't long ago that he was a four-star recruit and considered a top-10 defensive end in the country. He started his college career at UCLA before transferring to Utah in 2015. He has big-time traits and needs a little luck in the injury department to show them off.
"One of his biggest issues for all teams, including us, was durability," Nagy said. "And if he had better durability, he probably would've went a little higher. He knows that. He understands that."
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Fitts was given grades as high as the fourth round by NFL draft analysts in the run-up to the draft. Landing him in the sixth round could be another chapter in the expanding book of Day Three steals in Ryan Pace's tenure as Bears general manager.