All-Bears Historical Fantasy Draft

A few of us Windy City Gridiron writers have been having a blast running through an All-Chicago Bears Historical Fantasy Draft this week. We’re sharing the entire thing on a Twitter thread, which you can find right here, but you can also see the entire thing in a Google document by clicking here.

We’re doing it for an offseason project here on WCG to run during our “slow” period for NFL/Bears news — think June-ish — but the interactions are so much fun on Twitter that we had to share it here too (h/t to Jack).

Here’s the basic premise. Eight of us will draft a 25-man roster out of players that played for the Bears at some point in their careers. The catch is we only get the player as a Bear. For example, drafting a Hall Of Famer like Orlando Pace probably isn’t a good idea because his stint as a Bear was only eleven games and he was a shell of his Pro Bowl Rams’ self.

If we draft an All Pro from the olden days, we’ll assume that the player’s game would translate to the modern era. For example, Hall Of Famer Clyde “Bulldog” Turner was a 6’1”, 237 pound center, but he was absolutely dominating in the 1940s. His dominance carries over to the 21st century.

We’re picking eleven on offense, eleven on defense, a kicker, a punter, and one wildcard position. And when it comes to the long snapper, there can be only one, so Patrick Mannelly is the all-time long snapper for all eight teams.

We’re already over half way through the draft, and here are some highlights so far.

• Jack started things off with a surprise taking Brian Urlacher first overall.
• That wasn’t the only shock of the first round as Robert took Leonard Floyd with the eighth overall selection.
• Floyd was the only non Hall Of Famer picked in the first thirteen picks. The fourteenth pick, Jimbo Covert, another non Hall player went to Erik. For the record, Covert would have been in Canton had his health held up.
• Pick fifteen was another shocker when Sam grabbed quarterback Mitchell Trubisky. Remember the rules, Sam only gets Trubisky’s 2017 season as a baseline for his team, but with Walter Payton lining up as his running back I think Trubisky could have had a hell of a rookie year.
• Speaking of quarterbacks, Jacob took Jay Cutler in the third round, and since I was fearful there would be a run at QB, I took Jim McMahon with the very next pick.
• Ken has both Mike Ditka and George Halas on his team.
• Jeff took the only kicker off the board so far, Robbie Gould in the thirteenth round.

Once the draft is done we’ll each do a write up our team, then we’ll pair them up in a tournament and have you guys vote on the winners!

Full draft in the Google Doc here - All-Bears Historical Fantasy Draft

Follow along on our Twitter feed below.