I am not going to spend much time over the next mont breaking down which college players is going to go where. Frankly, I don’t care that much. Instead I’m going to write about college players I really like. Cody Whitehair might be my favorite player in this year’s draft.

From NFL.com:

Four-­year starter voted team captain in 2015. Tireless worker bee in the weight room and in practices who brings a high degree of dependability and consistency to the table. Team­-oriented. Played exceptionally well while out of position at left tackle for Kansas State. Atypical body composure and control. Is almost always in complete control of his body thanks to outstanding core strength and balance. Extremely efficient with his movements after the snap. Has played both guard and both tackle spots and has roster value at all five positions. Mirrors with a wide, stout base and has great feel for keeping defender squared up throughout the rep. Confident, composed and competitive. Smooth and athletic when asked to pull and has radar to find target and strike accurate blow. Makes up for shorter arms with massive hands that function as vise grips. Consistent with hand placement and extremely sticky blocker. Combines hand strength and balance to snatch and control a defender until the whistle blows. Can sink hips at contact and should be able to stalemate bigger players across from him. Exceptional body control and core strength allows him to successfully redirect defenders who get to his edge.

He can play all across the line. He’s nasty. And he reminds me of Zack Martin, who might be one of the two or three best guards in the league. I think Whitehair will get there in a couple years.

All the homework is done and the Bears are just left waiting to see who is there for them to pick. By now, they have a list of players they think might be available and have them ranked on their board, but nobody has access to that list outside of John Fox and Ryan Pace. So, here’s my best guess.

First, a few things I considered:

• The best player available thing is just GM talk. They look at positions of need and this list will reflect that.

• I won’t pretend to be a scout, so my “scouting reports” are based heavily on things actual scouts (current and former) have said. I do a ton of research on the draft prospects and put more weight on what those who do the job for a living say than the guy with 1,563 Twitter followers.

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This weekend is the final opportunity for you to register for the DBB / Art of Men NFL Draft Picks Contest. There are ONLY two ways to register:

• Follow Art of Men (@ArtofMen) on Twitter and send a message reading “Draft Contest”.
• Go to Art of Men’s contact page – http://artofmen.org/contact/ – and fill out the form with the message being “Draft Contest”.

The contest will be simple. Everyone registered will submit their guess for the Bears first round pick. Those who get that player right will move on to round two…etc. The last contestant standing will receive two tickets to a Bears game this season. (Tiebreakers will be announced next week.)

If nobody gets the first round pick right, the tickets go to charity. Because, quite frankly, you don’t deserve them.

If you read this space regularly, you know I don’t care about measurables. It’s not that I don’t think they are important. They clearly are a useful tool in the scouting process. I simply don’t care about them in the same way I don’t care about the Combine (which is actual pornography to measurables people), the salary cap (dead money! dead money!) and weekly power rankings.

Brandon Doughty isn’t going to be Peyton Manning. He isn’t going to be a ten-year NFL starter at quarterback. But when I watched him on the field this season I kept having the same thought over and over again, “This kid can play a little bit.”

I don’t think there is a star quarterback in this draft and I think a few years time will prove that teams reaching for Wentz, Goff, Lynch or Cook will find themselves in Ponder/Locker territory. Doughty needs a few years of serious NFL coaching and the Bears, with an established veteran QB and locked-in coaching staff, might be the perfect destination.

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You know Noah Spence’s story. He was a five star recruit, kicked out of the Big 10 because of two failed drug tests for ecstasy. He went on to Eastern Kentucky, had a productive year and made people drool as he ran around bad tackle prospects at the Senior Bowl. That was right around the time of the Super Bowl and everyone suddenly wanted Spence to be Von Miller. Here’s the thing: He isn’t Von Miller and isn’t close as a prospect.

I’ll get to the red flags later.

Spence has very real physical flaws that make me think he’d struggle even if he did stay clean. The best pass-rushers in the league are either long or athletic. Spence isn’t either. It isn’t just about his 40-yard dash time. He didn’t show particularly good agility or explosiveness.

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Four Thoughts

• Teams have to consider the idea that Nkemdiche is batshit crazy. He’s smoking synthetic marijuana and jumping/falling out windows in the middle of his final season in college. He admitted at the Combine he was occasionally lazy on plays. He doesn’t have red flags. He is a red flag.
• He’s a physical freak. From Yahoo:

At 6-foot-3 and 294 pounds, his 40-yard dash (4.87 seconds), bench reps (28 at 225 pounds), vertical (35 inches) and broad jump (9 feet, 8 inches) were all in or near the top percentile for defensive tackles.

• Nkemdiche is one of the only players in this draft who passed my “jumped off the screen” test during the college football season. These are players that make me pause the game I’m watching and ask, “Who the hell is that?” (My three favorite examples being Ndamukong Suh, Justin Blackmon and Aaron Donald.) At Alabama, Ole Miss’ most difficult opponent of the year, Nkemdiche was the best player on the field and led the Rebels to victory. He had 2.5 tackles for loss, including a half sack. He was unblockable.
• If he falls out of the first round the Bears should be clawing at the walls of their war room throughout Thursday night. Risking a second-round pick on this kid is no risk at all because the reward could be an NFL star.

Here we go again. My first mock mock draft came before free agency started, which means there have been a ton of changes, especially at the top of the draft and with the Bears.

What I don’t have is changes at the very top. I think the Titans and Browns are pretty much locked into who they are going to take and both picks make a lot of sense. After that, however, it’s anyone’s guess.

By now, the Bears are likely keying in on a handful of players they either want to take at 11 or will try to trade back. I did a “big board” a couple weeks ago, but this is very fluid. If I did that again, there would be several changes.

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Art of Men is one of our primary sponsors (and a fantastic organization you should really check out). This year the organization is offering a pair of Bears tickets for the coming season to the winner of our NFL Draft Contest. The contest details will be announced Monday, April 25th. (It will essentially be guessing the Bears picks the same way we do it every year but we haven’t settled on the points system yet.) But in order to be eligible for the contest YOU MUST REGISTER.

There are two ways to register:

• Follow @ArtofMen on Twitter and send a message to the account marked “Draft Contest”.
• Go to Art of Men’s website contact page (located here: http://artofmen.org/contact/) and fill out the simple form with your name, email address and in the Your Message field simply write “Draft Contest”.*

REGISTRATION WILL BE CLOSED ON FRIDAY APRIL 22ND AT 6:00 PM CT.

NO EXCEPTIONS.

*This will sign you up for Art of Men’s weekly email and allow you to search the organization’s database of projects.

You’d be hard-pressed to fine anyone who deserves the title of NFL Draft Expert more than former Chicago Bears Director of College Scouting Greg Gabriel, who agreed to do a quick Question and Answer about the upcoming NFL Draft with DBB.

While Gabriel was in charge of the Bears college scouting, they drafted players such as Lance Briggs, Tommie Harris, Devin Hester, Johnny Knox and Nathan Vasher. Gabriel worked in the NFL for 30 years and currently lends his expertise to National Football Post and 670 The Score. In other words, he knows his shit.

Q: I know every organization is different, but with free agency, the combine and most of the pro days already in the books, can you explain what the final month before the draft was like for the front offices you worked for?

A: The final month is mostly draft prep. Many of the allowable 30 visits come in then. (They can come in until a week before the draft). Depending on the club, the scouts come in for final meetings and setting the board. That could be anywhere from two to three weeks before the draft. The scouts are also making calls to perspective UDFA’s just trying to recruit. If the GM feels they might need a little more info on a kid, then he may send out a coach or scout for a private workout. We also make a lot of calls to gather as much info as possible as to where certain guys may get drafted.

Q: One of the things I’ve noticed about the Bears is how much they value length. In Vic Fangio’s time with the 49ers and John Fox’s time with the Broncos, they drafted 13 defensive linemen and edge players, all with arms longer than 33 inches. Can you explain why length is so important for pass-rushers, specifically?

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The Bears found a bonafide starting safety in the middle of the 2015 Draft. There may be another lurking in the middle of this year’s edition.

From a piece a few months back at NFL.com:

The scoop: “He’s a better football player than Shaq Thompson and Deone Bucannon were when they came out.” — Area scout on Southern Utah safety Miles Killebrew

The skinny: That is high praise — Thompson and Bucannon both were first-round picks. However, we’re not surprised to hear such talk about Killebrew, who has accepted an invitation to the Reese’s Senior Bowl. He jumps off the tape and has a chance to be a name you’ll hear a lot leading up to the draft. Killebrew has good size at a little under 6-2 and 230 pounds. He’s been clocked at 4.45 in the 40. Everything we hear is that his character is impeccable.

Why did I find myself watching a Southern Utah game with a dozen Guinness in me late one Saturday night? I have no idea. But I watched them play a second time to watch Killebrew alone.

Killebrew reminds me of one of my favorite Bears safeties in recent memory: Tony Parrish. He’s fine with the ball in the air but seems most comfortable closing in on the football and hitting guys. The Bucannon comparisons are lofty praise (you will recall Deone love in this space prior to that draft) but Killebrew is going to be starting safety in the league.