The Bears have been on a roll in the offseason for the past few years. First, was pulling off the blockbuster trade in 2023 to get D.J. Moore from the Panthers, and their 2024 1st round draft pick. That 2024 pick turned into the #1 overall pick in 2024, which the Bears used to draft Caleb Williams (along with their own 9th overall pick, in which they drafted Rome Odunze). Now, in 2025, they managed to sign Ben Johnson (perhaps the most sought-after head coaching prospect in 2025). They also walked away from the free agency signing period with a revamped offensive line that should give Caleb Williams much better interior protection in 2025.
The Ben Johnson hire, by itself, was enough for many people to crown the Bears "offseason champs" for the third year running. But I was a bit hesitant. I was hoping that they would get the trifecta of also having an exceptional draft. And my definition of "exceptional draft" was to somehow manage to select Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty. Jeanty was a controversial topic among Bears fans. Conventional wisdom says that drafting a running back early in the first round is a waste of draft capital. But I think this is wrong for 3 reasons.
Photo credit: Boise State Football.
I was 1 thousand percent on the Ashton Jeanty bandwagon.
The case for drafting a running back (named Ashton Jeanty)
The first is that the NFL is changing. It isn't the "passing league" that it was for most of the 2000's and 2010's. Passing production has tapered off for the past few years, and even elite quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, and Matt Stafford are struggling to put up 300 yards and more than 1 or 2 TDs on a week-to-week basis. In fact, in 2024, not a single QB reached the 5,000 yard mark (Joe Burrow was the top passer, with 4,918 yards). And that is despite the fact that there's a whole extra, 17th game on the schedules now! The reason for this is that defensive coordinators are getting sick of getting torched for 4 or 500 yards and 4 TDs every game. They're building defensive rosters specifically to stop the pass, and are moving away from run-stuffing Cover 3 and Cover 1 schemes in favor of calling a lot of Cover 4 and Cover 2 in order to limit offenses' ability to throw down the field. This has opened up space underneath and lead to a resurgence of elite running backs, with Saquan Barkley having one of the best years of any running back ever, breaking the single-season rushing record (including playoffs) on route to leading the Eagles to a Super Bowl victory.
The second reason is that I firmly believe that teams should prioritize drafting for need, unless there are simply no good options at those needed positions, when your pick comes around. Running back was one of the Bears' top needs this season. Only offensive tackle was arguably a more important need.
Photo credit: AP Photo / David Longstreath.
Jeanty's 2024 season was 2nd only to Barry Sanders.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, is that Jeanty was an elite prospect -- possibly a generational one. His 2024 season is 2nd only to Barry Sanders in terms of rushing yards, and he's tied for 7th overall for TDs. The only reason that Ashton Jeanty did not win the Heisman is that Travis Hunter was an ultra-rare 2-way player, who excelled at both offense and defense. I totally understand selecting Hunter for the Heisman, even though my vote would have been for Jeanty. Honestly, I think the committee should have award co-Heisman trophies to both Hunter and Jeanty, due to the unique circumstances surrounding this year's award (having a 2-way player, and a record-book bell-cow running back).
The Raiders were watching Mountain West football
Yes, Jeanty "only" played in the Mountain West. Would he have put those numbers up if he were playing in the SEC or Big 10? Perhaps not. Or maybe he would have. After all, if he were playing in those conferences, he also would have had one of the best offensive lines in the country blocking for him. So who knows?
As an alumni of UNLV, and a home season ticket-holder, I had the pleasure and misfortune of seeing Jeanty torch UNLV's defense 3 times in the past 2 years. And this isn't the UNLV of old! Those past 2 UNLV teams were good, and had very good defenses. In fact, Jeanty is perhaps the single reason that UNLV is not back-to-back Mountain West champions, and why UNLV did not make it into the inaugural College Football Playoff.
I watched Jeanty, over and over again, get hit by 2 or 3 defenders in the backfield, go down, and somehow still hear the announcer say "Ashton Jeanty carries the ball for a 6-yard gain." I saw him slip through or bulldoze over UNLV's [admittedly] under-sized defenders as if they were 12-year-olds playing pee wee football. I walked out of those games thinking that the defense played well against Jeanty, only for him to still have somehow put up over 150 yards.
I've had the pleasure / misfortune of watching Jeanty play against my alma mater in 2 MWC Championship games.
I got the feeling that a lot of the critics and haters of Jeanty who showed up on Reddit threads to complain that the Bears should not take a top-10 pick on a running back, were all people who never watched him play. Honestly, how many college football fans across the country actually pay attention to the Mountain West? But I saw him play, and I was one thousand percent on the Jeanty bandwagon.
Apparently, Pete Carroll and the Raiders were too. Being in Las Vegas, their scouts probably watched those Boise State / UNLV games just like I did.
I knew that Jeanty wasn't making it past the Raiders at the number 6 overall pick. Carroll loves to pound the rock, and Jeanty is exactly the kind of runner who he always builds his teams around. But I hoped that the Bears would find a way to make it happen. When the Browns traded back from pick #2 to swap pick #5 with the Jaguars, my hopes sunk. I thought for sure that they were trading back with a plan to draft Jeanty. After all, Nick Chubb has been hurt, and his future with the Browns is uncertain. But maybe the Browns would trade back again, in order to accumulate more draft capital for a rebuilding year? And maybe the Bears could move up to #5 to get Jeanty ahead of the Raiders? When the Browns drafted a defensive tackle at number 5, my hopes shot up again. The Bears still had a chance! Perhaps they could still trade with the Raiders to take Jeanty?
But those hopes were immediately dashed when, within seconds of the Browns announcing their pick, it was announced that the Raiders' pick was in. If the Raiders were picking, they were picking Jeanty. And that's exactly what they did.
Honestly, I understand that Jeanty falling to number 10 was a long-shot to begin with. But I was hoping that all of the talk of "running backs not being worth a top-10 pick" would cause the Raiders to blink and maybe take a QB. Shaduer Sanders was still on the board, and a player like Shaduer is exactly the kind of player that Mark Davis likes to draft. But alas, Carroll won out, and got his running back.
Photo credit: Stacy Revere / Getty Images.
Jeanty getting past the Raiders at pick 6 was a longshot.
The Bears' draft was ... weird
So if the Bears weren't going to get Jeanty, then the next most important position to draft would have been an offensive tackle. But by the time pick 10 came along, the best offensive tackle candidates were also off the board. Will Campbell went 4th to the Patriots, Armand Membou went 7th to the Jets, and Kelvin Banks Jr. went 9th to the Saints. With Shaduer Sanders slipping out of the top 10, and none of the 2nd through 9th picks being quarterbacks, the Bears' top 4 prospects were already chosen.
The Bears probably weren't expecting all 4 of those guys to be gone! As such, they probably had to go with the best player on their board, who was Michigan tight end Colston Loveland. After all, if conventional wisdom says that Ashton Jeanty might not have been worth a top-10 draft pick, then the next-best running back in the draft, Omarion Hampton, surely wouldn't be worth a 10th overall pick either, right? Honestly, I was surprised that the Bears didn't trade back the middle of the 1st round in order to get more draft capital and still be able to take Hampton. But they didn't, perhaps thinking that he might fall to the 2nd round. But the Steelers drafted Hampton at 22 overall.
Ben Johnson's offensive scheme made Lions tight end Sam LaPorta into an elite offensive weapon, and Colston supposedly plays a lot like LaPorta. I don't know, because I didn't think of tight end as a position of need for the Bears, so I honestly didn't do any research into tight ends (or Colston in particular) prior to the draft.
The Bears continued to get unlucky throughout this draft. Supposedly, they really liked TreVeyon Henderson from Ohio State as their fall-back plan on the likely chance that Jeanty would be taken. But the Patriots drafted Henderson in the 2nd round, one pick before the Bears were up. So they once again had to scramble to figure out the next best player on their board.
That next-best pick was apparently wide receiver Luther Burden III out of Missouri. Honestly, this pick was a steal, and easily the highlight of the entire draft for the Bears. Burden was projected as a mid-to-late first-rounder, so for the Bears to get him in the 2nd round is an incredible steal. After losing Keenan Allen to free agency, the Bears needed some more receiver depth, and Burden will likely be a great tertiary weapon alongside D.J. Moore and Rome Odunze.
The Bears' top choices were off the board, so they "improvised" throughout the draft.
The Bears had 3 2nd-round picks, and they put the other 2 into the trenches, taking an offensive tackle and a defensive tackle. But still no running back. They didn't have a 3rd-round pick, and so suddenly, this "very deep" running back draft class was starting to look a little slim. There was a run on running backs in the first half of the 4th round, forcing the Bears to reach for linebacker Ruben Hyppolite.
It wasn't until the middle of the 7th round, when the Bears finally drafted a running back with their final pick. They took Kyle Monangai from Rutgers. Monangia's claim to fame is that he never lost a fumble in college. He played all 4 years at Rutgers, started his junior and senior years, and run for over 1,000 yards in both those seasons. At the very least, his exceptional ball security skills should make for a good short yardage, goalline, and run-out-the-clock option in the Bears' backfield. But he's no Ashton Jeanty...
So close ...!
So I don't know what to think about the Bears' 2025 draft. I fully expected a running back or offensive tackle for their top pick. In fact, I expected their first 2 picks to be offensive tackle and running back, one way or the other. Despite all the good things that happened for the Bears in the 2025 offseason, this unlucky draft makes it hard to call this an "unqualified success". Maybe the revamped offensive line will come together, Colston and Burden will light up the stat sheet, and someone in the running back room will emerge as a clear number 1 guy. Maybe DeAndre Swift will explode in 2025, or maybe the Bears will find someone in free agency?
In any case, the Bears were so close to "winning this offseason" (for the 3rd time in a row). But they seemed to come up just one [Ashton Jeanty-shaped] piece short.