The Chicago Bears may deserve a pass for repeating 2017 NFL Draft mistake

The Chicago Bears have all but confirmed that Caleb Williams will be the first overall selection in the 2024 NFL Draft.

Williams completed his Pre-Draft visit with the Bears earlier this week and by all accounts, the presumptive No. 1 pick is not completing with a Pre-Draft visit with any other team. Circling back to Williams' Pro Day at USC last month, the Bears were the only team to meet with the quarterback prior to his workout.

From that standpoint alone, the assumption is that Williams has been told by the Bears that he will indeed be the selection.

It would also seem that the Bears are repeating a similar process that was deemed a mistake in their evaluations leading up to the 2017 NFL Draft. In 2017, then Bears' general manager Ryan Poles was locked on Mitchell Trubisky. Poles' tunnel vision for Trubisky led to the Bears passing on completing an evaluation of Deshaun Watson and likely not having an attentive manner during their Pre-Draft meetings with Patrick Mahomes.

It's a process that has been highly criticized considering the Bears, ultimately, picked the worst of the three quarterbacks that were available to them.

In his focus on Caleb Willians, Ryan Poles may be repeating a past Chicago Bears' mistake.

Williams has been the only quarterback that the Bears have hosted for a Pre-Draft visit at Halas Hall. Beyond that, Poles, himself, has only been at the Pro Days for Williams, LSU's Jayden Daniels, and Michigan's JJ McCarthy. Though, with LSU, it's worth noting that wide receiver Malik Nabers could be an option for the Bears at No. 9 overall depending on the run on quarterbacks at the top of the draft. In both instances, however, it's believed that the Bears did not have private meetings with Daniels and McCarthy at their respective Pro Days as they did with Williams.

The indication is that Poles has locked onto Williams in a similar way that Pace locked onto Trubisky.

The tape does not lie and based on game film, Williams is the best quarterback in this draft class. Therefore, it's easy to see why Poles may not want to go through the motions of having Pre-Draft meetings with quarterbacks that he knows the team will not be taking.

The only way Poles' process would be a mistake would be if there was a scenario that existed where Williams refused to play for the Bears but that is not something that has become reality. In fact, the opposite has occurred in that Williams is set on playing for the Bears. That would be the reason why there is no reason to fear Poles falling in love with Williams the way that Pace did with Trubisky.

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