Hub Arkush: Bears stand pat at 43 and 50 and appear to knock it out of the park
There is so much to discuss about the Bears' first two picks in the 2020 NFL College Draft - Notre Dame tight end Cole Kmet at 43 in the second round and then Utah cornerback Jaylon Johnson at No. 50 - it's hard to know where to start.
But let's try this and see what you think. After three consecutive drafts that left some real discontent with a significant portion of Bears Nation - the move up for Mitch Trubisky and reach for Adam Shaheen in 2017, a nice haul in '18 but more picks sacrificed to move around and move up for Anthony Miller, and the three-pick bounty spent on David Montgomery last year - Ryan Pace did pretty much exactly what almost all Bears fans were hoping he would Friday night.
Many felt that even with the addition of Jimmy Graham and Demetrius Harris, older players and likely short-term fixes, tight end was still the Bears' greatest need, certainly one of the top two or three, and in Kmet they got the consensus No. 1 prospect at the position in this draft without having to move at all to get him.
At 6-6, 262 pounds he is the prototypical Y tight end the Bears sought, still relatively new to the position after focusing more on baseball in high school and with an extremely high ceiling because of his outstanding athleticism.
On top of that, he's a Chicago kid - or more accurately, Lake Barrington - who played at St. Viator.
While he certainly feels like the perfect fit, there were some more highly rated players still on the board at those other areas of real need including safety, cornerback and wide receiver.
But even if there were any doubts or slight buyer's remorse for anyone, it had to be completely blown away when they were able to tab Johnson seven picks later.
Johnson was a consensus first-round prospect by every team I talked to in the weeks leading up to this draft, and we had him rated the No. 3 cornerback and No. 24 player overall.
He fell because of a shoulder surgery the first week in March on a torn labrum suffered at the beginning of the season last year that he decided to have when he couldn't work out fully at the combine.
It was an arthroscopic procedure though not considered to be terribly serious and there are multiple reports that his rehabilitation is ahead of schedule and he should be able to return to full football activities by August.
@Hub_Arkush