Chicago Bears 2020 Draft Grades: Trevis Gipson, EDGE, Tulsa

We’re taking our grades in a different direction this year at WCG with the reason being, neither I nor our Senior Draft Analyst EJ Snyder are big fans of giving a player an arbitrary letter grade before he’s stepped onto the field.

Grades are still a wildly popular way to look at draft prospects, so we want you guys to give us your letter grade for each pick. So with that being said, what do you think about Trevis Gipson heading to the Chicago Bears in the 5th round after the trade of a 2021 4th rounder to get him?

But as for our “official” WCG grade for each selection the Chicago Bears make in the 2020 NFL Draft, EJ wanted to have a more detailed way to measure the potential he sees in each prospect, so his methodology is as follows.

He’ll be giving out points in these three categories on a 1-10 scale.

1. Player Skills: How much pure talent/skill/production do they have?
2. Scheme Fit/Potential: What might they do based on where they landed?
3. Draft Value: Were they a value draft-wise where they were picked? Could the team have waited and done OK?

EJ’s Grades for Trevis Gipson

• Player Skills = 6: Gipson is a strong player with very good size and great length. Shows good explosion off the snap and attacks the ball carrier with abandon. Will pursue with terrific hustle and he’s a heavy tackler. Knows how to use his arm length to keep blockers off him and shows promise with hand usage. Not a ton of bend and will needs to work to keep his pad level low versus more powerful tackles. Better going forward than he is in reverse.
• Scheme Fit/Potential = 7: A very good addition as an understudy to Khalil Mack and Robert Quinn. His potential to contribute immediately as a situational rusher is decent. If he is open to coaching and emulates teammates like Roy Robertson-Harris and Bilal Nichols, who have to come to Chicago and developed in their roles, then he’ll be on a solid track to success.
• Draft Value = 5: Trading a future 4th round pick feels a little steep - but the player’s skill-set and potential to develop at a position of need offsets that bit. I’ll call it right down the middle. In the end, if Gipson develops - it’s a value, but if he stalls out - it was a bit of reach.

Let us know your grade for the pick in the poll above!

For more on Trevis Gipson you can listen to Robert Schmitz’s Bear With Me Podcast as he is joined by our Lead Draft Analyst Jacob Infante and our Senior Draft Analyst EJ Snyder.