General manager Ryan Poles will get time to rebuild the Bears — they gave Ryan Pace seven years even though he produced just one winning season, so there’s that — but the clock started ticking after the draft.
Poles can discard any of the pieces Pace left him, even a recent second-round pick like offensive tackle Teven Jenkins, but he needs to come up big on his first draft class.
He needs to be right about passing on some of the top wide receivers in the second round to take cornerback Kyler Gordon (No. 39) and safety Jaquan Brisker (No. 48) and waiting until snapping up Velus Jones in the third at No. 71 overall and 14th among receivers.
With depleted draft assets in his first year, Poles has to hit on all three of those picks. They need to show promise this season and make considerable contributions no later than next season. As for the eight players Poles took in the fifth, sixth and seven rounds, as well as the 13 undrafted rookies in camp, finding a handful of reliable players would be a success.
So far, so good.
The early reviews on Gordon and Brisker are encouraging. Jones has as good of a shot as anyone of emerging as Darnell Mooney’s running mate. And perhaps no rookie has made as much headway as fifth-rounder Braxton Jones from Southern Utah. He’s in line to start at left tackle.
Given where they were picked, Gordon and Brisker should be ready to start from the jump. It’ll be choppy, at least at the start, but they need to be competent.
“They’re surprising me,” cornerback Jaylon Johnson said. “Kyler, just his versatility, being able to play the nickel spot. That’s not an easy position to learn. It just shows his I.Q. of the game, shows his learning ability, being coachable.
“I didn’t really know too much about [Brisker] coming in. I had a lot of question marks, but just seeing him play, and having conversations with him, and working out after practice, he’s definitely hungry for success. He’s definitely a competitor. He wants to win, and I love that to start with, for sure.”
Safety Eddie Jackson added of Brisker, “He asks a lot of questions — a lot of the right questions. It just shows you that he’s going to have a lot of success in his career because he pays attention to the little things.”
