It really doesn’t feel like draft week. I guess I’ve been spoiled in terms of draft importance the last two years. My team drafted a QB second after trading up from the third slot, then followed up with the eighth pick the following year. 

Now I’m looking at a year without a first OR second round pick, and it’s been easy to drift off into la-la-land when extensive analysis of top picks are going on. I’ve been caught in the calm before the storm. 

The Chicago Bears currently hold the throne in The North (please excuse the corny Game of Thrones references from heretofore). They are down in reinforcements (draft picks), and need to fight again with the soldiers still weary from battles of the last year.

Meanwhile the Green Bay Packers are gearing up for a resurgence. Under a new regime of GM and Coach, the Pack seem to be modernizing their football operations. They have one of the best quarterbacks in the league, and a defense on the rise under the watch of Mike Pettine. They also possess two crucial picks in the 12th and 30th overall selections. Under former leadership, the conventional wisdom would be that the Packers are always looking to trade back and increase quantity of picks over quality. This feels different. Brian Gutekunst seems to have positioned the Packers so they can be aggressive instead of reactionary come Thursday.

The obvious need is edge rusher, and man there are plenty of those. If they graded them all out fairly similar, they can sit back and wait to see whomever falls in that slot. If they have identified one they love more than the rest, maybe they could package both the 12 and 30th selections to get “their guy.” As an NFL GM, you only really get one shot, you better make it count. Cast a wide net, find your guys, and get aggressive to go find them.

It’s the model that Ryan Pace utilized during his tenure in Chicago. Early on, many questioned why he was drafting players form North Carolina A&T State, or Ashland. Or why he was selling the farm to move up one slot, and ending up with a player that most speculated would have been there at three anyway. The answer is simple: GET. YOUR. GUYS.

Plenty of people want to imagine a scenario where you just wait until your pick comes up, you survey the landscape, and take the “best player available.” Lots of teams – Bears included – are working backwards from that process. Find the players you want, and trade your way to the position necessary to get him. Packers fans would be wise to demand that aggressive approach from their front office.

That’s not to say being ultra-aggressive is always the correct play. I also think the Bears are due for a pivot on how they’ve handled the draft. The Khalil Mack deal has left them gutted of notable early-round picks. They now have to get creative to pepper in depth at positions that usually sustain injuries like offensive line and linebacker. The Bears did not need to access their depth, due to some long overdue injury luck. I do not expect that to continue because, frankly, I can’t have nice things. 

The Bears need as many darts on the board as possible. Ryan Pace has also shown exemplary evaluation skills in the fourth (Eddie Jackson, Tarik Cohen) and fifth (Jordan Howard, Adrian Amos) and hopefully even later rounds if some projections on Kylie Fitts and Javon Wims are to be believed.

It’s a changing of the status-quo we’ve come to know. The Bears are the hunters who should lay back and play the depth game. The Packers be solely focused on finding instant-impact playmakers to become even better hunters. The Battle for the Throne in the North begins Thursday.

 I know you may have gotten sunburned over Easter, but trust me. Winter is coming.

– Jake Logli, Sportsfan 1330