Tiers

[Atkins&Rebel]

@thunder - no Marshon Lattimore?

Short arms/wingspan, tender hamstrings, and a little too iffy as a tackler for my taste. (Your mileage may vary.)

Loads of upside, though, if he can stay on the field; he's certainly fast enough and shows good agility on tape.

Yeah, the only guy I really liked in the top 10 was Sidney Jones...which I would like to see where you'd put him with the injury.

[BamaBear09]

@thunder - no Marshon Lattimore?

Short arms/wingspan, tender hamstrings, and a little too iffy as a tackler for my taste. (Your mileage may vary.)

Loads of upside, though, if he can stay on the field; he's certainly fast enough and shows good agility on tape.

Yeah, the only guy I really liked in the top 10 was Sidney Jones...which I would like to see where you'd put him with the injury.

Conley's prob going to be the more productive pro, once he gets his press technique down, he's going to be very, very good.

[thunderspirit]

@thunder - no Marshon Lattimore?

Short arms/wingspan, tender hamstrings, and a little too iffy as a tackler for my taste. (Your mileage may vary.)

Loads of upside, though, if he can stay on the field; he's certainly fast enough and shows good agility on tape.

Yeah, the only guy I really liked in the top 10 was Sidney Jones...which I would like to see where you'd put him with the injury.

I liked Jones, but honestly wasn't sure he'd ever be more than a nickel/slot CB at his weight. (Jones also has shorter arms/wingspan than I like at corner, but that's nitpicking.)

Obviously the Achilles injury is troubling; even with modern medicine, there's no guarantee he'll have the same level of quickness, which was second-best part of his game (after ball skills). I personally might roll the dice early on Day 3 — the years of Angelo drafting pre-injured guys probably has made me much more skittish than I might otherwise be — and I suspect some team, one with a decent secondary who can afford a medical redshirt year, will gamble before then.

[thunderspirit]

Recently saw an interesting Tweet storm about DBs targeted in Pace's last couple of years with New Orleans and his two years with the Bears — vertical and broad jumps appear to be key, even for UDFAs — which caused movement on my list and some additions/subtractions.

Additionally, I had a debate a few days ago with someone that altered my draft philosophy somewhat; basically, everything after the middle of Round 5 or so should be treated as an extended UDFA period, so identify rare traits and draft those. Preliminary research shows some merit to that approach, though it merits more investigation.

Lastly, I also tweaked this as much toward what I see as fits for the Bears as possible.

Final tier chart, with changes.

[karhu]

Thanks for mentioning that, thunder. I wonder if it has to do with NO's propensity for playing three safeties. The vertical, at least, is the most telling combine event for safeties, according to the Harvard Sports Nerd Stat Thingy (sorry, I've been breathing polyurethane fumes for a day and a half). Next comes the cone. For CBs, it's the 40 and of all things weight.

[thunderspirit]

For CBs, 40 time of course makes sense. Weight (BMI, more accurately) makes some sense too, actually, since small guys tend to get hurt a lot in this game.

The tweets I mentioned are here and here. Despite the numbers presented, I didn't consider much before 2013 as Pace worked on the pro player side in New Orleans before that, so I'm not sure how relevant the draft trends are. But the tendency with the Bears has certainly been clear.