Building the Board: Examining Edge Rushers

Is there any single position the Chicago Bears need to address more clearly than their defensive ends? Especially after Robert Quinn had been traded, the Bears boasted one of the worst DE groups in football — not only could they not stop the run, but they couldn’t rush the passer either.

The Bears need the length they’ve talked about so consistency, and many of the DEs in the 2023 draft class will give it to them — let’s break a few of them down.

For several months now, the WCG crew has been working hard on a simple idea: building a Chicago Bears draft board brick-by-brick in an attempt to create as authentic a draft board as possible while tailoring it specifically to one team (rather than the scheme-free evaluations that are so common around the internet).

We’ve been scouting the players available in the 2023 NFL Draft, and we’ll continue to do so, with the end game being a fully-fledged Draft Board. Today we talk through our next batch of player grades — specifically, these 10 Edge Rushers:

Remember, this list isn’t in order of quality/ranking! Simply order of appearance!

• Alabama’s Will Anderson
• Texas Tech’s Tyree Wilson
• Clemson’s Myles Murphy
• Georgia Tech’s Keion White
• Georgia’s Nolan Smith
• Iowa’s Lukas Van Ness
• LSU’s BJ Ojulari
• Iowa State’s Will McDonald IV
• Northwestern’s Adetomiwa Adebawore
• Army’s Andre Carter

Our initial Draft Board (1.0) will be on a Google Document that we’ll share here as soon as it’s done, and keep your eyes peeled over the next few weeks — we’ll be adding players to it in batches of 10 as we try to show the process of how draft boards shuffle week-by-week.

We’re excited! We want to hear your thoughts — do you agree with today’s grades? Do you disagree? Let us know!

Podcast version is available here:

And in case you missed the original introduction video for Building the Board, check it out below for an overview of the project!