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It's no secret that the Bears have a spotty draft history over the last decade. In fact, there's no sugarcoating it here, this article will drudge up memories of disappointing players.
The point isn't to discourage optimism for next month's first round pick or to dump on former general manager Jerry Angelo.
The fact is the overall drafts weren't as good as they should have been. In fact, with the departure of Devin Hester, the sole draft of the last 10 for which the Bears still have a player on their roster is 2008 (Matt Forte and Craig Steltz). Obviously some of that is down to normal roster turn over with the new regime in charge, but it is still worth noting. Especially since none of the players the Bears took between 2004 and 2007 are still with the Bears.
So the track record isn't great. That's established. Now let's look back at the first round picks of the last decade. Over that time the Bears actually only had seven first round picks because they traded out of the first round in 2006 and they gave up their first round picks in 2009 and 2010 in the Jay Cutler deal.
Before someone posts it, Cutler doesn't count as a draft pick. They gave up two picks for him but they did that because they were unable to select someone of his caliber in the previous drafts.
The players the Bears did pick are:
2004: Tommie Harris, DT, Oklahoma (No. 14 overall)
2005: Cedric Benson, RB, Texas (No. 4 overall)
2007: Greg Olsen, TE, Miami (Fla.) (No. 31 overall)
2008: Chris Williams, OT, Vanderbilt (No. 14 overall)
2011: Gabe Carimi, OT, Wisconsin (No. 29 overall)
2012: Shea McClellin, DE, Boise State (No. 19 overall)
2013: Kyle Long, OG, Oregon (No. 20 overall)
So who was the best out of these players? The Bears managed to get a grand total of four total Pro-Bowl appearances out of these seven players (three for Harris, one for Long). Before injuries robbed Harris of what made him great he was as dominant at his position as there was in the league. Olsen and Benson were disappointing in Chicago but found success elsewhere (and Olsen may have had it not been for Mike Martz). Long was great for one year but is it too early for him to be considered the best of the era?