Three Bears go in PFF’s 4-round NFL re-draft

A couple weeks ago, ESPN put a fun spin on the offseason tradition of “re-drafting” when they went a full four rounds and didn’t stick to a specific NFL Draft class. They made all the players in the league available and had beat writers from each team make the picks. There were three Chicago Bears players that went in their re-draft, and the recent 4-rounder from Pro Football Focus had the same three Bears go in theirs.

PFF had a few of their analysts and a couple other guest football experts assigned to the 32 teams. Josh Hermsmeyer from fivethirtyeight.com took Allen Robinson for the Buccaneers with the 51st overall pick (2nd-round), PFF’s George Chahrouri took Eddie Jackson in the 2nd-round (64 overall) for the Bengals, and Khalil Mack was a 3rd-rounder (90th overall) of the Texans, also picked by Josh Hermsmeyer.

The first round of their re-draft was QB heavy as the first 26 picks were quarterbacks, and three teams didn’t even bother drafting one. The first non-QB was Bucs’ receiver Chris Godwin, and Aaron Donald lasted until the 32nd pick. The first edge defender didn’t go until pick 33 in rookie Chase Young.

Overall it was an odd draft, but the first round pick by the Bears representative was a head-scratcher.

Round 1 (19): QB Jameis Winston

Round 2 (46): WR Amari Cooper

Round 3 (83): CB Jeff Okudah

Round 4 (110): T Orlando Brown Jr.

“I’m going to go with Jameis Winston. … Here’s the thing: I was swayed a little bit by what Josh just said [about Kirk Cousins] because he reminded me of something that Eric [Eager] often preaches, which is: When you make it to the playoffs, you win a Super Bowl because you can string together three, four great games. And Jameis Winston may not get me to the playoffs in four of the five years because he’s a catastrophe, but if he gets me there one year, I at least think he’s got a chance to string them together, whereas I don’t feel that way about Teddy Bridgewater or Ryan Tannehill.” – George Chahrouri

For as strange as seeing Winston come off the board in the first-round — he was a third-round pick in ESPN’s version of the re-draft — the other three re-drafted picks are money. Cooper and Brown are young Pro Bowlers and Okudah was the top corner prospect in the 2020 draft.

Take a gander at their re-draft and let us know if Winston would have been your pick.