Once Peyton Manning decided to remain an amateur quarterback in Tennessee and Ohio State heap Orlando Pace was accounted for, the intrigue in the NFL draft was who would get flotsam and who would get jetsam. Applying themselves patiently, the Bears were able to get some of each.
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This does not count Rick Mirer, of course, a table scrap in his own right. Mirer remains the basket containing all of Dave Wannstedt’s visible eggs.
This being the draft no one cared much about anyhow, the Bears did the intelligent thing and removed themselves from the early clutter.
There will be no need to explain a John Thierry, or counsel patience on a Rashaan Salaam. This draft was pre-O.J.’d; that is, officially guilt-free.
But just to prove they had given this a bit of thought and to justify scouting expenses, the Bears traded for a tight end who would have been around had they traded, as everyone else seemed eager to do, down.
This does not count Darnell Autry, locally familiar, who will always have the Northwestern renaissance to be proud of, and there were 104 players chosen before Autry who don’t.
The Bears had the advantage of not being impartial about Autry, able to ignore his measurable deficiencies and recall there had been a lot of avoidable buzz about the young man. The Bears had to know that once Autry had been invited to the Heisman ceremony.
This is the same logic used to choose Salaam a couple of years back and the race now is to see who justifies the Bears’ faith first, Autry or Salaam.
Even with Salaam’s three-round, two-season head start, and Autry’s tendency to get caught from behind, I am leaning toward the theater major.
Nothing the Bears did on draft day is likely to make a difference soon or ever. With a draft history like scar tissue, it was wise to apply the primary rule of the medical profession, first do no harm.
Consequently the Bears are, to choose a few draft day adjectives, “astonished, satisfied and excited,” and this was before the caterer showed up.
No team ever left the draft room thinking it had not picked its friends’ pockets, or at least admitting it in public.
Therefore, top choice John Allred is not, I repeat, not an injury-inclined tight end with suspicious durability, but a tough competitor familiar with pain in the mold of Bear tight ends, even if Chris Gedney comes to mind before Mike Ditka.
And Allred can bring all the X-rays he wants. Ryan Wetnight and Keith Jennings can match film with him all day.
Likewise, the next pick, Bob Sapp of Washington, is not a 300-pound underachieving guard still learning his position, but rather an eager learner with suspended potential.
Sapp may be a martial arts expert who looks better than he plays, but that does not make him Alonzo Spellman. If he’s lucky.
As for Marcus Robinson, a track creature from South Carolina, he does not necessarily have better feet than hands, and even if he does, both are important to a wide receiver.
And if Robinson does run indifferent routes, shies away from the middle and may not always play hurt, these credentials brought Anthony Morgan on the Bears, and no one wonders what ever happened to him any more.
Van Hiles of Kentucky may be too small to be a safety and too slow to be a cornerback, but so was Kenny Gales.
Shawn Swayda of Arizona State may be too small to play inside at defensive tackle and too slow to play outside on the end, but so was Carl Reeves.
As for the rest of the bunch, all defensive players, all among the second hundred players chosen, only one of them, safety Ricky Parker of San Diego State, has been accused of not being able to tackle at all.
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Bring on the Packers.