6 best remaining players for the Chicago Bears after round 1 to draft Day 2

Remaining player for Chicago Bears on Day 2: Nakobe Dean (LB, Georgia)

Before my head is put on a stake for saying the Chicago Bears should draft a linebacker with their limited draft picks, Nakobe Dean could be a perfect pairing to Roquan Smith in the Matt Eberflus defense.

It also makes sense that the Bears would draft Dean, as he’s a two-time winner of the Dick Butkus Award. Said award is awarded to the nation’s best linebackers. Dean won at Georgia in 2021, and he won it at Horn Lake (high school) in 2018. As a two-time award-winner for an award named after a legendary Chicago Bears linebacker, the stars could be aligning.

Yes, wide receiver and interior/exterior offensive line could likely be the direction Chicago goes, but Nakobe Dean would still be a solid selection.

Again, do the Chicago Bears have bigger needs? Yeah. But, with a draft as chaotic as this one’s been, it’d be better to draft the best player available than reach for a position fit on a player the Bears could’ve drafted in a later round.

Along with that, while it brings up a potentially sore subject, Roquan Smith isn’t technically signed to play for the Bears after this season. There are pros and cons to this, of course.

The pro would be that Roquan Smith is playing on a contract year, aka a year when a player usually goes out and proves their worth for the next contract they sign.

And while Dean is seen as a smaller linebacker to some NFL analysts, Nakobe Dean is arguably as talented on the football field as Quay Walker, his linebacker teammate who saw his name called at No. 22 to the Green Bay Packers.

For Nakobe Dean’s sake, hopefully, he and Quay Walker aren’t both punished by going to a team with an almost identical logo as their college team, just with much worse colors.

Pairing Roquan Smith with another accomplished Georgia Bulldog linebacker could make for a dynamic duo, similar to the Urlacher/Briggs Chicago Bears defense.

This pick is more unlikely, but nothing is ever impossible on Draft Day.

Alright, next player.