Ryan Poles has emphasized the importance of building through the draft since accepting the Bears general manager position, and he has done a good job of staying true to his word through two offseasons. He followed up his first class, in which he managed to add five starters (including undrafted rookie Jack Sanborn), with an equally impressive group this year.
They filled their major needs, well most of them, anyway (cough* edge rusher cough*) with their early- round selections and took fliers on a few high-upside lottery tickets in the later rounds. The front office did just about as good as they could with the picks at their disposal and received overwhelmingly positive reviews as a result.
While it is certainly nice to see the national media agree that Chicago had a stellar draft, the fact of the matter is these grades mean little at this point in the offseason. We will have to wait to see how the class performs on Sundays before accurately assessing their impact.
A few of the Chicago Bears rookies will have a chance to make a day-one impact, as the team will be counting on them to play significant roles right off the bat. At the same time, others might have to wait a bit longer to make their presence felt since they already have an established starter ahead of them on the depth chart (which looks surprisingly deep on paper).