Lincicome: The Bears need an ‘edger,’ and not for field maintenance

By most accounts, this year’s NFL draft is “varied,” a catch-all cop-out meaning the bottom isn’t much different from the top. This is good news for the Bears, picking 25th, an opportunity best described as medium; that is, neither rare nor done well.

Pending some sort of sleight of hand by GM Ryan Poles, all that Bears fans can be assured of is that whoever is there, they will not have heard of him.

Might he be Zion Young of Missouri or T.J. Parker of Clemson or Keldrick Faulk of Auburn, all of whom are identified as “edge rushers?” This is a term that used to be known as a linebacker, or maybe a defensive end.

Those terms, while traditional and well known, were too vague, not exotic enough for a new batch of talent analyzers figuring how to keep their jobs. But as “lumbago” became “back pain,” it really doesn’t matter to anyone who has either.

Why “edge rushers” did not just become “edgers,” like “punters” or “receivers,” cannot be accounted for by current research. Let’s just say that you know one when you see one or when a draft choice is announced as one.

We will take their word for it that the Bears need one, not to mention someone to center the ball, someone to catch it and someone to defend it. It would not be a Bears draft without needs. At least the Bears do not need a quarterback, having found one that fritters away all but the last two minutes of games.

Mediocrity is a killer in draft protocol, meaning the Bears are a team not good enough to not need any help nor bad enough to get something worth getting. What will be left when the Bears get there may require two forms of ID and a note from Mel Kiper.

The last time the Bears were picking near to 25, they got Jim Harbaugh at 26. Historically whoever it is will fit between Brad Muster and Wendell Davis. So we shall see.

I do notice lots of flurry concerning the foregone top pick, Fernando Mendoza from Indiana. He comes with a national title, the Heisman Trophy and his own ABBA song, credentials that should land him in Las Vegas.

Mendoza appears to be doomed to join the witness protection program for quarterbacks who disappear into Raiderland, never to be heard of again. What happens in Vegas, stays in … well, you know the rest.

In the 85 common years of the draft and the Heisman, voters and scouts have agreed only 23 times on No. 1, the chief consequence being that only the general managers lose their jobs when they are wrong. Loss of newspaper jobs has an entirely different cause.

This draft seems usually dull because of so many “edgers” and so few quarterbacks. Oh, there are other quarterbacks in the draft besides Mendoza — Ty Simpson of Alabama, Garret Nussmeier of LSU, Carson Beck of Georgia — but they will be asked to keep their phones on mute until at least the second day.

The higgledy-piggledy New York Jets with the second choice seem ambivalent between two prized “edgers,” Ohio State’s Marvell Reese and Texas Tech’s David Bailey, one of whom Arizona awaits with pleasure. This is the kind of dilemma the Bears will not face when sifting through leftovers.

For fourth-picking Tennessee, there is Notre Dame’s running back Jeremiyah Love, for the Giants, receiver Carnell Tate of Ohio State, for Cleveland a Utah tackle named Spencer Fano and so on and so on.

I’m afraid I’ll have to take on faith the contention that this is the most varied draft in years. And that the Bears will not confuse an “edger” with a “corner.”

It is almost impossible to do this because there are grown human beings who spend considerable time determining that Mansoor Delane of LSU is the best cornerback and Caleb Downs of Ohio State is the best safety.

All of this is what it is, of course, as in any NFL draft. Guessing. Extensively researched, collated and computerized, but guessing, nonetheless. There are more mock drafts than there are presidential gaffes.

You know it is time to stop when you begin rhyming.