Ryan Pace always says he drafts the best player available and doesn’t draft for need. It’s the right thing to say. It wouldn’t exactly send a good message if he said the Bears drafted for need because that implies he passed up on a better player to fill a hole on the roster.
But David Montgomery was a “need” pick last year. So were James Daniels and Anthony Miller in 2018. You can argue Roquan Smith and Mitch Trubisky filled positions of need in 2017 and 2018, too. The point is, Pace does use his highest picks to fill needs, often paired with cheap, short-term free agent signings.
So let’s follow the money and see if we can find a roadmap for the direction Pace will take, specifically with the Bears’ two second-round picks (Nos. 43 and 50) in April’s NFL Draft. We'll start with the least likely position and move on to the most likely in the gallery here:
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Ranking the positions the Bears will target in the NFL Draft