The NFL Draft at its best is a crap shoot. Teams can do all the workouts and combines and Wonderlic tests they want, but there is no way to accurately judge which kids will turn out to be the future of football. You try your best to weed out those who have questionable backgrounds or may be prone to going mental, but it is all a big game of chance.
So looking at the history of the # 18 pick, we can't make any assumptions about the quality of player we may get. For every Top 5 pick bust there is a mid-6th round success story. For every Peyton Manning you have a Ryan Leaf or Michael Vick.
You also have to consider the teams drafting at that spot. Some teams have a history of being poor evaluaters of talent.
Of course that isn't going to stop me from taking a look at past drafts at the 18 spot. I've gone back to 1985, not sure why that just seemed like a good year.
| Player | Drafted By | Pos. | College |
| Joe Flacco | Ravens | QB | Delaware |
| Leon Hall | Bengals | DB | Michigan |
| Bobby Carpenter | Cowboys | LB | Ohio State |
| Erasmus James | Vikings | DE | Wisconsin |
| Will Smith | Saints | DE | Ohio State |
| Calvin Pace | Cardinals | DE | Wake Forest |
| T.J. Duckett | Falcons | RB | Michigan State |
| Jeff Backus | Lions | T | Michigan |
| Chad Pennington | Jets | QB | Marshall |
| Matt Stinchcomb | Raiders | T | Georgia |
| Robert Edwards | Patriots | RB | Georgia |
| Kenny Holmes | Oilers | DE | Miami (FL) |
| Eddie Kennison | Rams | WR | Louisiana State |
| Napoleon Kaufman | Raiders | RB | Washington |
| DeWayne Washington | Vikings | DB | North Carolina State |
| Ernest Dye | Cardinals | T | South Carolina |
| Dana Hall | 49ers | DB | Washington |
| Alfred Williams | Bengals | LB | Colorado |
| Tony Bennett | Packers | LB | Mississippi |
| Brian Williams | Giants | C | Minnesota |
| Aaron Jones | Steelers | DE | Eastern Kentucky |
| Tony Woods | Seahawks | LB | Pittsburgh |
| Mike Sherrard | Cowboys | WR | UCLA |
| Freddie Joe Nunn | Cardinals | DE | Mississippi |
You can see it is more miss than hit, but there are some names in there that were good or are still contributing to their team. Flacco and Penningtion had a good deal of success this year. Duckett and Smith are or can be heavy contributors.
Now for some other Bears draft trivia. In the history of the draft the Bears...
have drafted a total of 1272 players
have drafted 86 first rounders, 62 second rounders and 77 third rounders
have drafted more players from Notre Dame (41), Ohio State (29), Texas (26), Oklahoma (25), Stanford (24), Northwestern (21) and Arkansas (20) more than any other schools. (Maybe I'll break that down later by years, having more rounds then and less scouts obviously affected those numbers)
since 1965 have drafted RB (94), DB (82) and LB (52) more than any other positions (earlier than 1965 positions were labled differently and one designation could pertain to more than one position)
have drafted only 44 QBs
have drafted 6 kickers and 4 punters