Lincicome: When it comes to Bears drafts, safety goggles are required

The delight over the Bears draft was so soft you could hear the dot on the question mark drop.

It was not as much from surprise as disinterest, knowing going in that what matters was happening somewhere else and that whatever was left for the Bears would require all the flim and the flam that the occasion could find.

And not to disappoint, the Bears came up with some doozies. First of all, there is the fiction that a safety is a critical part of any football team, confirmed by the fact that the Bears hadn’t picked one in the first round since Madonna mattered.

And, with little notice, the Bears had lost four safeties in the offseason, creating vacancies no one had detected. Welcome, Dillon Thieneman.

The two chief attributes of the Bears’ first choice seem to be “speed” and “violence,” each considered important in modern football and measurable, although at this point mostly digital, which apparently is how the Bears happened to find him.

“I hadn’t talked to them (the Bears) too much,” Thieneman said, “but I knew they were interested in me.”

“Dillon’s tape popped out,” explained Bears GM Ryan Poles, having relied on the Oregon Home Shopping Network to do his job for him.

Safeties are, by name and function, the wardens of the yard, free and strong, important when others mess up, needing to be part linebacker, part blitzer, part cover guy. The greatest compliment for a safety is be considered “versatile,” which is what Thieneman is touted to be.

It is usual to find these guys among the second hundreds of hopefuls awaiting selection by NFL teams who, by divine decree, are able to point and say, “I take one of those,” usually from places like Toledo or one of the directional Floridas.

Thieneman took the pioneer route from hometown Indiana to Purdue to Oregon, where the Bears still found him. Following college players in the transfer portal age is like relying on bread crumbs, or more likely in these NIL days, following the croutons.

Rules allowing college athletes to sell themselves (Name, Image, Likeness) has changed the once smug designation of “student/athlete” to “independent contractor.” Schools become factories, which they always were, of course, but now the draft is less like a flesh market than a job market.

The opportunity for athletes to shop for a better team has changed the idea of old school affections where alumni pretend to share the college experience with the athletes who care nothing about it.

Jocks look for the best fit for the next level, not unlike engineers or business majors, I suppose, except, as ol’ Bear Bryant once observed, “It’s dang hard to get 60,000 folks to cheer a math class.”

Like Thieneman leaving Purdue for Oregon to get noticed, No. 1 choice Fernando Mendoza left California for Indiana. No. 2 pick David Bailey left Stanford for Texas Tech, so trying to apply logic to jocks is like explaining hygiene to a cat.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Mark Carrier, the last first round safety for the Bears, was a solid choice and a substantial player, less remembered now since he came after the Bears’ greatest glory. If Thieneman is as good, this draft will be considered worthwhile.

By rough count, there are only a dozen true safeties in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the lowest position number save centers and tight ends. Of them all, not one would make a category on “Jeopardy,” save maybe Troy Polamalu. I’ll take “Helmet Hair” for $600, Kenny.

Most reviews give the Bears high marks for the choice, but considering these things are graded on a curve, who really knows? One team’s A is another team’s C minus.

If the secondary, with the addition of free-agent safety Coby Bryant, is no worse than it was, a pass rush is still needed and the loss of D.J. Moore will be more obvious as passes are dropped and routes misrun.

Here’s the short of it. The Bears are no better today than they were when they lost to the Rams in January. This must be considered progress.