Can the Bears Still Draft a Safety in the First Round of the 2026 NFL Draft?
The Chicago Bears still have some areas to address on their defense after their signings in free agency. With holes still left on the roster, can the Bears still consider using their first-round pick on a safety?
Video Transcript
Here's a question that's been on my mind.
Can the Bears actually consider drafting a safety with the twenty-fifth overall pick in the twenty twenty-six NFL Draft?
Let's discuss that right now.
What's up, everybody?
I'm Nicholas Moriano from Roundtable Sports.
With the first wave of moves done in free agency for Ryan Poles, I've just been thinking, thinking about the upcoming draft, April twenty-fourth, night one, and that twenty-fifth overall pick that the Bears currently have.
And Ryan Poles has addressed some of the holes on this roster, but there's still plenty of questions remaining.
And for me, when I think of the twenty-fifth overall pick and what the Bears could potentially do there, I'm left thinking of these two options in this scenario.
Can the Bears consider drafting a safety with their first-round draft pick before upgrading the pass rush?
And I want you to think about it for a second here because whenever you hear Ryan Poles talk in front of the media, it's always best player available, right?
That's how a lot of teams operate.
And if the best player available at pick twenty-five is, let's say, for example, Oregon's Dylan Thieneman, does Ryan Poles just make that selection, no questions asked?
You get to get your safety opposite of Kobe Bryant.
You fill the back end of a defensive backfield that lost both of its starting safeties last season in Kevin Byard and Jaquan Brisker.
Position filled.
Don't even have to have any more questions about that.
But still, the one area that Ryan Poles has not addressed is edge rusher so far in free agency.
He's added two interior defensive linemen, but edge rusher is still a question mark.
Yes, you have Montez Sweat, who had ten sacks last season.
But opposite of him, Dial Ndegbe, the Achilles injury in November, end of his season early.
Austin Booker showed flashes.
Like, is that what you wanna go-- is that what you wanna roll into for the twenty twenty-six season at this point in time?
Again, it, I think there's more questions at that position than there are answers as it currently stands.
So when you're weighing maybe best player available is Dylan Thieneman versus an edge rusher, that's where I think it gets really interesting for Ryan Poles and his staff to weigh the different options.
And look, there's still plenty of time before night one of the draft, but you just gotta think that this Bears staff is weighing that scenario and probably a hundred other ones, to be completely honest, and doing whatever exercise they have to do to potentially predict how this will end up going.
And look, the draft is unpredict- It's must-see TV, right?
We all watch to hear names being called, but that's because we just don't know what's going to happen.
So Bears, the Bears staff likes to use mock draft simulators that they made, and, you know, Poles revealed that on the Todd McShay Show, during the combine week.
So you know they're going through different scenarios, but that's just one I wanted to present to you.
And what do you, what do you think?
Can the Bears draft a safety before adding a pass rusher, given what the team looks like as it currently stands today?
So I think an interesting one because the Bears need both, right?
You need another safety on this team, but you also need to upgrade a pass rush that stuggle- struggled, sorry, a majority of last season.
Let me know what you think because I think it's one of those questions that Poles and his staff are definitely gonna have to think about.
