One Expert Gives Bears Draft a Failing Grade

Clipped from: sports.yahoo.com (share this clip)

I ranked the Bears draft with a B- minus grade.  They get A’s for addressing needs at OT and DT in Rounds 1 and 2, which are weighted more heavily than latter rounds, which got C-minuses for reaching on a safety and choices of a quarterback and late-round linebacker.  That seems about right relative to what a lot of your responses to our poll and many other draft grades.  Unfortunately, Yahoo! Sports’ Jason Cole disagrees.  He gave the Bears an F.

Chicago Bears

Picks: OT Gabe Carimi(notes), DT Stephen Paea(notes), S Chris Conte(notes), QB Nathan Enderle(notes), LB J.T. Thomas(notes).

Grade: F

Analysis: This is a grade on principle. If you agree to a trade, you should follow through on it. GM Jerry Angelo’s wimpy way of backing out of his deal with Baltimore is just unmanly. This is the same guy who once complained about San Francisco tampering with Lance Briggs(notes). No GM in the league should ever trust Angelo again and to do that to a person as classy as Ozzie Newsome is just ridiculous. The Bears should have sent the pick to the Ravens simply as an apology. Beyond that, Angelo guessed wrong about who Kansas City was going to take and ended up getting Carimi anyway. Here’s even more bad news: Carimi isn’t that good and doesn’t fit what the Bears want to do. Paea in the second round was a solid pick, even if he cost a lot to get, but Conte was a stretch in the third round.

From sports.yahoo.com (share this quote)

While the botched trade is another blight on Jerry Angelo and the Bears it shouldn’t undermine what was an otherwise successful draft.  When you fill your two biggest needs with your top two picks, both guys that had grades substantially higher than their actual draft positions (read: bargains!), your draft was a success.

Reaching for guys later in the draft isn’t what most of us fans want to see, but that seems to be where Jerry Angelo still has a little something up his sleeve.

And as far as the Ravens are concerned – Boo freaking hoo.  I am so sick of this crybabying about what the Bears should have done to make it right.  As Jerry Angelo pointed out, the league could have stepped in if a rule had been broken.  It wasn’t, so the league took no action.  The Ravens had their own draft day snafu with the Vikings a few years back, so they don’t have room to talk.

"The Ravens, while acknowledging the trade was agreed upon, contended it was not made official because they didn’t speak with league official Joel Bussert.“The deal was not consummated,” general manager Ozzie Newsome said at Baltimore’s headquarters. “A deal is not a deal until I talk to Joel Bussert, and I never talked to Joel Bussert.”"