Spoiler alert!!! Oh wait, it's already in the subject. So anyway, the Bears made their pick around an hour ago, and it was the Cornerback out of Virginia Tech. Fuller's got a lot of football in his blood. However, there was a roller coaster of emotions. I hadn't even mentioned him earlier today, but I did consider it. I just felt that he was too close to the middle in between the Bears picks where they wouldn't draft him, and he wouldn't fall to them in the 2nd round. Well, I was wrong on that I guess, and the Bears made him the 14th overall pick.
Now, before anyone says the Bears should have just waited and picked him in the second round, he wasn't falling that far. You can say all you want that he would, but that doesn't change the fact that he wasn't going to. He was probably going to be, at worst, a late first round. He was a stretch, but at the same time, he was maybe a 5-15 pick stretch at most, not a 37 pick difference.
Anyway, I was very shocked by the pick when it first happened. I had seen him mocked there by a couple of sites, including walterfootball.com, which is a site I usually have a lot of respect for. However, when I saw it with Pryor and Clinton-Dix still on the board I thought they were crazy. I thought that maybe they just didn't really understand what the Bears would be looking for. However, whatever information they had, they were right.
So anyway, I was a little bummed at first, and not just because Aaron Donald went with the previous pick, but I really thought that they would have Pryor and Clinton-Dix over him. Anyway, the stages of "grief" with me are kind of jumbled, and acceptance was the first thing that really set in. So, I thought, if this guy is the pick, then I might as well do my research and find out more about him. I went ahead and looked for some grades on the pick.
The results really got my interest. Did I just overlook this guy throughout the draft process since I was so focused on safety and Aaron Donald in the first round? Anyway, the first grade I saw was from walterfootball.com. They gave the Bears a B+. Next up was bleacherreport.com. They also gave the Bears a B+. So I'm starting to think twice about my own views at this point. I check out cbssports.com's grade, and they gave the Bears an A on the pick. Then when I got to SB Nation they had given the Bears an A-. The early grades on the pick have been outstanding, to say the very least. Not only that, but Walter Football seems to think that the Bears will be moving him to safety.
Anyway, let's back peddle a bit here. Looking at Kyle Fuller, at the combine he had a 4.49 40 and a 38.5" vertical leap. Not bad at all right there. However, one of my biggest problems with the combine is that they don't measure the more important things like instincts, intelligence, attitude, and work ethic. So I went around looking for reports to read about these. Supposedly his instincts are great, some of the best in the draft. That really bumps up that 40 time as far as his ability to get places on the field. I've always said I'd rather have a guy who runs a slower 40, but knows where to go than a guy who runs a fast 40 and is running all over the field. Throw in Fuller's good size at 6' and 190 lbs. and the Bears have a guy who will probably be able to cover almost anyone in the league. When you're in a division with Calvin Johnson and Aaron Rodgers twice a year each, that's a very good thing, as you can never have enough secondary help in that case.
So anyway, while they're a terrible way to judge a player's talent, there are some things you can get from watching highlight videos. Not only that, but I looked at his numbers, and everything looks surprisingly good. By that I mean that I expected things to look good by this point, and things actually looked better than I still had expected. Everything I was reading on this guy just looked great.
So anyway, my initial reaction was a bit of shock and disappointment, but the more I've read, the more I've liked with this pick. At very worst he totally flops. However, as far as more likely scenarios, it looks like he'll be anywhere from a future starting corner or safety to a future Pro Bowl starting corner or safety. He seems to have too many good traits to fail (of course, we never know until they actually play a few years though).
No comments:
Post a Comment