Bears shifting focus to 2nd #1 pick … With most NFL teams now back in their respective war rooms plotting their strategy for the 2024 draft, now barely over three weeks away, there isn’t a whole lot of buzz these days. The one thing that does seem to be becoming abundantly clear is that Chicago is going to take USC QB Caleb Williams with the first overall pick on the 25th. So much so that most of the draft related talk in Chicago the past little while has been about what the Bears will end up doing with their other top 10 pick, the 9th overall. Interestingly, Bears’ GM Ryan Poles has reportedly divided his staff into groups each tasked with arguing for one of the other positions, although reading between the lines it appears that maybe the real debate in Chicago’s war room is whether the Bears take an OT with the 9th pick or another position, either a WR or a DE. And while there had been some speculation late last month that the Bears might consider trying to trade up from the 9th pick into the top 5 where they would take Notre Dame OT John Alt, the word out of Chicago seems to be that if the Bears do decide that an OT is their target with that second #1 pick, then they are probably more likely to trade down because there will still be very good OT prospects available literally into the 20s.
