The First-Round Problem

By: Chicago Sports Review

The “opportunity” to draft a Brian Urlacher really isn’t that.It’s no sign of distinction, no event worthy of adulation, no break for the franchise. It’s really the opposite. It’s a punishment, a commitment to massive signing bonuses for players who may never pan, and any coach or GM resting in the top ten who tells you otherwise is selling something fishy: themselves.

And so the day before I left for the NFL Combine six months ago, I had Urlacher tell me just why he thought the Bears picked him, and I thought it bordered on the insane. And when I rang up Brian’s agent Steve in California, and he confirmed it, I figured it was even more suspicious. An agent and a player in cahoots? Standard. So then when I called up Greg Blache — the Bears former defensive coordinator, and the man who watched Urlacher at the combine back then — now safely on Joe Gibbs’ staff in Washington D.C., and he confirmed it all, I had three guys, one story, and a good idea of just what the Bears were seven years ago.

Lucky. Big time.

Here was a kid who says, “I could have gone higher,” but was still a white safety from New Mexico. A massive, fast version of a white, safety from New Mexico, but still…

“We played kind of a 3-5, so he did have some linebacker responsibilities,” his college coach Rocky Long relayed to me.

Whatever. And if you think I’m against white safeties from New Mexico, you’re right. I generally loathe them.

But back to the combine. Urlacher wasn’t even going to run. He was going to just show up, take the tests, get poked and prodded, probably turn his head to the left and cough, and go home. Yet when Blache needled him, and essentially asked whether Urlacher considered himself a man by refusing to run, Urlacher phoned his agent, said, “I’m doing this,” ran pretty well (”I can’t even remember what he ran,” says Blache), and the rest is history.

Blache says that just the fact that Urlacher ran somehow told him that this was their guy.

And what did he run? “I don’t even remember,” says Blache, “but the fact that he did was more important to me at the time. I mean, you know everything about him anyway before he gets there. You know in general his speed.”

And after digesting the romance of it all, the raw instinct, the sheer genius that was clearly at work, imagine this: what if the guy sucked? What if they kept him at outside linebacker, where they had projected him, and he didn’t work? What if they had Dick Lebeau come in and install a 3-4? What if he was really just brutalizing the WAC–which he was–and that wasn’t a proxy for the NFC North? What if? What if?

I’ll tell you what. At that point, they would have defended it on all the measurables. The forty-times, the thirty-plus reps at two and a quarter, the verticals, the shuttle run. They wouldn’t have pulled out the “winner” and “competitor” excuses. No metaphysics get brought up when the kid fails. They go back to clear evidence. (Cade McNown was a “winner,” we recall. Ugh. Apparently they didn’t mention he won “Biggest Douche Bag.”) And it’s great, this Urlacher kid. But the Bears still got what any team is when they land a top ten pick that works out: extremely fortunate.

They were because they got Brian Urlacher, when he could have been Brian Bosworth. They got Manning when it could have been Leaf. They got a franchise when they could have gotten the fraud. And this is the devil in the details of the scouting reports that accompany every top ten pick in the NFL Draft. There really is no guarantee.

Not only is Benson not quite the guy we thought he is, we really don’t know. We don’t know if he’s the guy who played through a sprained knee in the Rose Bowl. We don’t know if he was the next Ricky Williams, in all the non-horticultural ways.

 A first-round quarterback isn’t guaranteed a thing, and succeeds only 25 percent of the time on average. An NFL running back maintains the low-end of the NFL average for years in the league, which currently sits at a paltry 2.4.This is why Lovie Smith is in such a tough position with Cedric Benson. Not only is Benson not quite the guy we thought he is, we really don’t know. We don’t know if he’s the guy who played through a sprained knee in the Rose Bowl. We don’t know if he was the next Ricky Williams, in all the non-horticultural ways.We don’t know.

And this is Lovie’s blessing, and his plight. Satisfy the team, or satisfy your GM. And it’s also why there is really no benefit to consistently drafting high. Why even be in the discussion for Mario Williams over Reggie Bush? It only means you were a loser. And then when your pick seems born of idiocy, or a sure bust, people can just say what they did when Williams went number one.

“They didn’t get to pick number one because they’re smart.”

It’s such an inexact science this game, and hopefully, Smith won’t feel bound to the wishes of his superiors and give a chance to a pair of guys just because the previous regime was bad enough to have to draft a top back early, or a quarterback in the first round. Both of those picks are serious hole-filling maneuvers, and yet the Bears don’t have those true holes in place.

Brian Griese — no first-rounder himself — and Thomas Jones, practically a forgotten first-round pick, have those holes filled just fine. And to say otherwise is to drink water from a mirage. It’s pure delusion.

Besides, success in this league of perpetual attrition is still predicated on depth. So take the small blessings of hollow first-rounders for what they are: solid depth.

We’d rather have that than a continual attempt to prove the front office right. And that’s a twisted notion anyway. What front office isn’t right when the insurance policies turn into heroes?

Then Angelo can lean back in his chair, satisfied that the Bears front office is truly resourceful. After all, which is better, a non superstar starter from the first round, or a Pro Bowl guy like Lance Briggs from the 5th? The latter, of course, though GM’s see their reps fall far more for the former.

Still, this is a situation for the Bears to make do with what they have, and see the upside. Even if the first-rounders were faulty, they should be congratulated if the insurance policies work.

And then they can ask, was it really a disaster if the cleanup is an improvement?

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