The top college seniors assemble in Mobile, Ala. for practices starting Tuesday at the Senior Bowl, wth the game on Feb. 1.
No doubt Bears personnel people will be focused on the bigs both blocking and tackling.
After coach Ben Johnson talked about the offensive line's importance and how he saw a need for standout defensive line help, those are natural areas to study in the all-star games at Mobile and also Thursday at the East-West Shrine Bowl, then later at the scouting combine.
There's already a buzz going on at the Senior Bowl, as there is every year at this time. It's about which quarterbacks are going to step up and grab attention.
There will be the same thing at every position but quarterback in particular.
The best quarterbacks in the draft aren't always found in this game but occasionally it happens.
Justin Herbert played in it. Bo Nix and Michael Penix played in it last year. Sometimes quarterbacks' performances in the game elevate them greatly in scouts' eyes. Herbert rocketed. Sometimes it doesn't. Bears backup Tyson Bagent played in it and didn't play poorly but still failed to get drafted.
The point?
The Bears have their quarterback already in Caleb Williams, of course. What the Bears need to do in the second round is draft another quarterback.
They need to draft a quarterback playing in the Senior Bowl.
They need to draft Mississippi's Jaxson Dart, and here's why.
Backup need
Bagent might have pleased the last coaching regime. That's over now. He lacks an NFL quality arm. It showed against Dennis Allen's Saints team when he faced them in 2023 in New Orleans and was picked off three times in a game when the Bears had five turnovers. His passes over the middle lacked sufficient zip downfield to challenge a secondary.
You might get by for a game or two against bad defenses and sometimes that's all the backup QB is going to need to play. Other times, they might need to play more and against good teams.
Look at Dallas this year with Dak Prescott or Cleveland with Deshaun Watson.
No one wants a wasted season if something happens to their QB. It's better to have a higher quality backup.
Why Dart?
It doesn't have to do with the fact he was the anti-Williams QB at USC. He was at USC and took the portal out when Lincoln Riley took over as coach and Williams transferred in.
Dart proved in the SEC against good secondaries how good his arm is, how quickly he could process and throw for coach Lane Kiffin for three seasons. In 2024, Dart led the SEC in completion percentage (69.3%), yards (4,279), yards per attempt (10.8) and college passer rating (180.7).
Dart is a classic pocket style passer, somewhat more like a Jared Goff, but with more mobility. Herbert might be a decent comparison, although he's 4 inches shorter than Herbert at 6-foot-2, 225.
Kyle Crabbs for The 33rd Team reports Dart can throw with power to all parts of the field.
He's labeled as a good fit for a play-action offense, and that's the type of attack the Bears will run with Johnson calling plays.
It's entirely possible Dart will ascend the chart like many QBs do at the Senior Bowl.
He's graded the third-best QB in the draft by all four ESPN draft analysts: Mel Kiper, Matt Miller, Jordan Reid and Field Yates. NFL Mock Draft Database has him at No. 52 on its big board but he has trended as high as No. 40.
Why Use a Second-Rounder?
When Ryan Pace was GM, he said the idea was to draft a quarterback every year. He drafted two in seven drafts and both failed.
Ryan Poles hasn't said he'd like to do this, but that drafting them as much as possible is a good idea. It's a good idea here with two second-round picks available.
Drafting a second one in four years makes sense for backup help for certain.
However, there are other reasons.
You get what you pay for in the draft. You can take a second-rounder to groom as a backup or potential starter. Odds are against someone taken later.
The idea for the Bears, of course, is to develop Caleb Williams as starter, to reverse the damaging effects of a rookie year spent in a trash offense with two different head coaches, two different play callers and three different offensive coordinators. They have a plan for doing this.
"Something I've been a part of in the past and will implement here is, each guy is gonna have an individual action plan of what he's put on tape, how we can get certain elements better," Johnson said. "That's already something we're working on with Caleb right now. Whether he knows it or not, I dunno, he's gonna find out when he comes in for the spring (minicamp). There are gonna be elements for the game we're really gonna focus on him getting better at."
What if they can't improve him? What if the damaging effect of this lost season is too great, or what if he simply isn't going to get better.
Pro Football Focus and Pro Football Network both had Williams graded as 33rd best QB this year. Williams has a long way to leap.
If all fails, they'd have a suitable QB behind him in Dart. They would also have a spur for Williams this season should he need one.
It might not be what Williams fans or Bear fans in general want to consider, but it seems they already realize there's always a risk too much damage done to their No. 1 overall from previous mishandling.
"He's going to be challenged to be a professional football player, to do the little things the right way," Poles said. "That foundation, I know Ben is going to hit that early and often, get that foundation strong, because you’re going to build everything off of there.
"So once that’s there, now we can continue to get better and play more consistently."
It wouldn't hurt at the outset of this coaching regime to be getting two high-quality QBs ready to be better and play consistently.
