2014 never happened. It never took place. It was a kind of perfect shit storm that rarely strikes an organization in professional sports. Last year’s Chicago Bears were not just a horrendous football team. They were a public disgrace; an alarming amalgam of overmatched and out-witted coaches, underperforming and over-chatty divas and straight up rats.

It never happened. Any of it. And understanding that concept allows one to draw an optimistic conclusion: the Bears 2015 offense has the talent and vision to carry the club through a successful campaign.

Does this mean they will be a playoff team? Perhaps not. A winning record? Possible if not likely. What this means is they will be competitive week to week. They will line up and play sixteen professional games whilst delivering sixteen professional performances. They will be an enjoyable experience for their loyal fans.

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Before the draft new Bears General Manager Ryan Pace was asked if Alshon Jeffery was a “number one” wide receiver. He was complimentary of Jeffery, but he never said “yes.” New coach John Fox indicated work ethic and conditioning were a concern for Jeffery, a possible reason they haven’t approached him about a new contract.

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…so they went out and signed Tracy Porter, a guy who did.

Two questions.

1. Does this move being made reflect upon the current state of the position in Chicago? (It’s not all that good but does this mean the coaches saw something worse than we expected?)

2. Wouldn’t Charles Tillman have been a better option than Tracy Porter?

I recently looked at the recent history (2006-14) of 1st round wide receivers in their rookie seasons to see what it is reasonable to expect from Kevin White in 2015.  Now I am going to look more closely at comparable players from that list to Kevin White based on his physical attributes and college production.

Physical attributes

I put together a list of the height and 40 time of all 30 receivers drafted in the first round since 2006 (based on Combine measurements when available, Pro Day when needed).  Kevin White measured in at 6’3″ and ran a 4.35 second 40 yard dash, so I looked for guys who measured between 6’2″ and 6’4″ and ran the 40 in 4.40 seconds or less as being similar to White.  The full list, which is very short, is seen below.

There are only four wide receivers who can roughly match White’s size/speed combo who have been drafted in the 1st round since 2006.  That shows the rare traits White possesses, and the names Julio Jones and Demaryius Thomas show you just how high his upside is.  Of course, players like Robert Meachem and Darrius Heyward-Bey show that this is no guarantee of stardom.

College production

I also looked at the college production of all the wide receivers drafted in the 1st round since 2006.  Since one of the fears with Kevin White is that he only has one strong season of college production on his resume, I looked at their production in their best college season as well as their production in their 2nd best college season.  Besides White, there were six players with at least 1,000 yards in their best season, less than 750 yards in their 2nd best season, and at least 400 yards difference between their best and 2nd best season.  That list is provided below.

Once again we see players who are stars and players who are busts, with very little in between.  Of the six players with similar college resumes to Kevin White, two (Demaryius Thomas and Dez Bryant) have become NFL superstars, two (Kelvin Benjamin and Odell Beckham) are coming off big rookie seasons and seem headed to NFL stardom, while two (AJ Jenkins and Robert Meachem) never accomplished much in the NFL, though Meachem at least had a couple seasons as a solid role player.

Combining both

Looking at players with White’s combination of size, speed, and college production, we narrow it down even further.  There are only two players who are comparable to White in both of the categories above: Demaryius Thomas and Robert Meachem.

I think it seems reasonable  to say those two serve as a baseline worst (Meachem) and best (Thomas) case scenario for White’s career.  It’s also worth noting that neither player did much as a rookie. Thomas had 22 catches for 283 yards as a rookie, while Meachem spent his rookie season on injured reserve and only posted 12 catches for 289 yards in his sophomore campaign, but that is a very small sample size and does not mean for sure White will have such a small impact in his rookie season.

Boom or bust?

Throughout his comparables we see the immense boom or bust potential that White possesses.  Bears fans can only hope that he avoids busting, because he should be a superstar if he does.

When the Bears drafted wide receiver Kevin White from West Virginia with the 7th overall pick of the draft, the expectation was that he would step into the starting lineup opposite Alshon Jeffery and make a significant impact in his rookie season.  Many fans certainly expect great things from White, starting in 2015, with a few even suggesting to me on Twitter recently that they think White will lead the Bears in receiving yards.

With that in mind, I wanted to take a look at the history of rookie wide receivers similar to White and see what they have done as rookies.  Thus I looked at every wide receiver drafted in the first round from 2006-14, a sample size of 30 players.  A full list of players, along with their rookie stats, can be viewed here.

Average production

Over the last 9 years, the average rookie receiver drafted in the first round has received 88 targets, caught 50 passes, gained 689 yards, and scored five touchdowns (this excludes AJ Jenkins, who recorded no statistics his rookie year, and Robert Meachem, who spent his rookie year on injured reserve).  But these numbers fluctuate tremendously; three receivers topped 1,000 yards (including one who had over 1,300), while four failed to record even 300 receiving yards.  Let’s look at how that production spreads out; the graph below shows the number of receivers in various ranges of receiving yards.

There is a pretty good spread across the board.  Between three and five players filled every category of 100 yards between 400 and 1000 yards, as well as more than 1000 and less than 400.  So it’s clear to see that the range of possibilities for Kevin White as a rookie are very broad.

Of course, you can argue that rookie seasons from eight or nine years ago don’t have much impact on 2015, as passing stats have exploded over that time frame.  There is some merit to that logic, but don’t get carried away.  Many fans remember the monster rookie seasons put forth by the 2014 class of rookie wide receivers and think that will be the norm going forward, but a closer look at the trends makes it seem likely that will prove to be an outlier.  To illustrate this, the graph below shows the average number of receiving yards for 1st round picks each year since 2006 (note 2008 is excluded because there were no 1st round picks at wide receiver that year).

As you can see, 2014 showed a huge jump in production by rookie wide receivers drafted in the 1st round, and expecting that to repeat itself does not seem realistic.  Overall the production of 1st round picks wide receivers doesn’t seem to have changed much since 2006, though it does fluctuate a bit from year to year.

Top 10 picks

Now I want to look at players more closely resembling Kevin White in a variety of factors.  I’ll start with draft position.  White was drafted 7th overall, and the expectations for a player like that compared to somebody drafted late in the first round should be different in their rookie seasons.  So let’s look at how the 10 receivers drafted in the top 10 since 2006.

The average production of these players is slightly higher than the average production of 1st round receivers as a whole in the last nine years; these 10 players averaged 96 targets, 50 catches, 723 yards, and five touchdowns as rookies.  Again there is a lot of fluctuation, with two players topping 1,000 yards and three failing to reach 500.

Team situation

Of course, one thing that could impact White’s production as a rookie is that the Bears already have an established player across from him in Alshon Jeffery.  On the one hand, this helps White, as he will not draw as much attention from opposing defenses.  But it could also limit White’s targets.  I counted 9 other 1st round receivers between 2006 and 2014 who went into a similar situation.  Let’s look at how they did in their rookie years.

These players definitely fared a little better than rookie 1st round receivers as a whole; they averaged 90 targets, 53 catches, 760 yards, and five touchdowns in their rookie seasons.  So it seems that having an established number one receiver opposite you as a rookie does help make the transition easier for rookies.

Stay tuned

There is definitely potential for Kevin White to have a monster rookie season like Mike Evans, Odell Beckham Jr., and Kelvin Benjamin did in 2014, but expecting that seems unrealistically optimistic.  Rookie 1st round receivers have been spread out pretty evenly from 400-1000 yards over the last 9 years.  A slight boost is seen for players drafted in the top 10 and players going to teams with an established number one receiver, two things going in Kevin White’s favor, so expecting that he might put up something in the range of 800-900 yards as a rookie seems reasonable.

Stay tuned for the 2nd half of this article, when I will look at comparables from this list for Kevin White based on physical measurables and college production to see what we might expect from him over the course of his career.

During the Miami Heat’s first championship run with Erik Spoelstra and LeBron James, Spoelstra coined the phrase “positionless basketball.” There was no set point guard or center. It was about getting the best five players on the floor and letting them play.

The Bears have the pieces to make something similar work with their front seven.

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Jared Allen showed in 2014 he is still more than capable of being an every down 4-3 defensive end (when not battling the effects of a debilitating illness). Willie Young was arguably the entire team’s MVP – providing the pass rush that was sorely lacking the year previous. David Bass continued to display his penchant for making the big play. Christian Jones showed he’s a professional linebacker. Jay Ratliff played a few of the best games a Bears tackle has played in twenty-years. Lamarr Houston was the best run defender and most idiotic celebrater for half the season.

The Bears defense has guys who can do some things. But how those things are utilized by John Fox and Vic Fangio will make or break the Bears defense in 2015.

The key word: aggression.

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I had a lot of questions. Adam Jahns always has a lot of answers. On this pod we discuss:

• The fallout of the Ray McDonald signing at Halas Hall.
• Was Cliff Stein demoted with the hiring of Joey Laine? (Sure sounds like he was)
• Where the hell is Martellus Bennett and what does he want?
• Would giving Matt Forte another year tacked on to his deal suffice or is the back looking for a multi-year commitment?
• Shea McClellin. Lots and lots of Shea McClellin.
• The Ultra-Positive: observations from the John Fox practice field.

As unpleasant as any conversation about Ray McDonald may be, there is still a football discussion needing to be had as the Bears must now replace a potentially key part of their defense. There’s no question the Bears made the right call in cutting McDonald. He needed to prove he could stay out of trouble and he didn’t. By releasing him they became a better organization. But they will be a worse team if young players don’t step up because McDonald was going to be the team’s best defensive lineman.

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There is only one man associated with the Chicago Bears who should be embarrassed by what happened with Ray McDonald.

It’s not Ray McDonald himself, who should definitely be embarrassed by his continued stupidity but is thankfully no longer associated with the Chicago Bears.

It’s not general manager Ryan Pace, who’s job depends on putting a team capable of winning games on the field.  His evaluation of players mainly applies to what happens on the field and in the locker room, and McDonald didn’t have any problems in those areas.

It’s not defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, who vouched for McDonald before he signed with the Bears.  Even more than Pace, Fangio’s input should only be taken into account for on-field product and locker room behavior.  Fangio should not be relied upon as an authority for anything involving McDonald’s personal life away from the field, so McDonald having issues in that area does not reflect poorly on Vic Fangio.

No, the man who should be embarrassed today is none other than George McCaskey, the chairman of the Bears who describes himself as the man with the final say in any personnel moves that involve character issues.

McCaskey himself has said that he initially told Ryan Pace he could not sign Ray McDonald.  According to McCaskey’s own testimony, that came after reviewing a detailed file on McDonald put together by Chicago’s security staff.  But McDonald and McCaskey then had a face to face meeting in which McCaskey was hoodwinked into believing in McDonald, so he changed his mind despite the facts of the case, and McCaskey’s knowledge of them, remaining exactly the same.

From a business standpoint, hiring McDonald was not really a bad move.  The Bears gave him no guaranteed money and cut him instantly when he messed up again.  In that regard, they didn’t really do anything wrong, even if I’m not a fan of giving an alleged serial domestic abuser his 4th chance in under 12 months when he has not voiced any sort of public remorse for his actions.

But here is why McCaskey should be embarrassed: his comments in the immediate aftermath of the McDonald hiring reek of delusion and hypocrisy.  He spoke of the Bears having “a 96-year tradition of doing things a certain way” shortly after signing a man that, by his own judgment when presented only with the facts of the case, did not fit in with that way.

He also spoke about needing to do a “certain amount of discounting” of the alleged victim’s testimony, despite the fact that he freely admitted never having tried to actually hear that testimony from the alleged victim, her lawyer, or anyone associated with her.  To McCaskey’s credit, he does say there is a level of bias to be expected from everybody involved in the situation, yet he apparently failed to apply that bias filter to McDonald’s side of the story while publicly attaching it to the alleged victim, just one of the many ways he showed a complete ineptitude in handling domestic violence situations.

Ray McDonald fooled George McCaskey into going against his better judgment.  This led to McCaskey trying to claim some absurd moral high ground while simultaneously participating in victim shaming of a woman who has allegedly suffered at least three incidents of domestic violence in the past year.  When it all blew up in only 2 months, McCaskey was left looking like a fool, and his family’s “96-year tradition of doing things a certain way” sure sounds like a hollow boast.