Arkush: Not much to look at in Bears preseason finale, but RB Nall looks like a keeper

Ryan Nall already was one of the most pleasant surprises of the Chicago Bears' preseason going into the team's final exhibition game against the Buffalo Bills, a 28-27 loss Thursday night at Soldier Field after the Bears led 27-3 at the end of the third quarter.

By the game's final gun, Nall appeared to also have become one the preseason's biggest story in Chicago.

Normally, the Bears' 25-point, fourth-quarter collapse would be the story, but there weren't more than four or five players total on the field who still will have NFL jobs by Sunday when Chicago folded, and nobody but a handful of soon-to-be-ex-Bills seemed to really care.

In another impressive performance from the Bears' offense, Nall took the game over in the second quarter with 4 carries for 6, 24, 17 and 32 yards, the last ending in the end zone.

Nall went into the Bills game as the Bears' leading exhibition rusher with 28 carries for 141 yards (5.1 yards per carry) and a long run of 69 yards.

He finishes the exhibition season with 32 carries for 223 yards (6.7 YPC), a long of 69 yards, 1 touchdown … and an apparent stranglehold on a roster spot.

Stranger things have happened than Nall still getting cut.

But as Patrick Mannelly, my partner on the Bears pregame show on 670-AM The Score, points out, Nall also has had an excellent camp on special teams, where he also has big upside.

When you consider Nall's main competition for the fourth running back spot, Taquan Mizzell - who has played ahead of him in practice and games all summer - managed just 9 carries for 23 yards Thursday night and finished the preseason with only 81 yards on 34 carries, you'd think Nall is now a lock.

But head coach Matt Nagy did tamp down that idea after the game, saying Nall still has a ways to go.

Veterans Knile Davis and fullback Mike Burton could complicate the equation, but even if the Bears did let Nall go he will be in the league somewhere this season.

What interests me most about the kid's story is that Nall is an undrafted rookie free agent out of Oregon State, and he is not the only undrafted player making a run at the Bears' roster.

Tackle Rashaad Coward, an undrafted defensive lineman last year out of Old Dominion who ended up on the practice squad after being converted to offensive tackle, has a very good chance of sticking this year, as do cornerbacks Kevin Toliver and Michael Joseph, although those two are better candidates for the practice squad than the final roster.

One could almost argue that undrafted finds are becoming a real specialty of general manager Ryan Pace, as he actually has uncovered a number of quality players this way over the last four years.

The best known to date is Cameron Meredith, a college quarterback converted to wide receiver who led the Bears in receiving two seasons ago. After tearing his ACL last year, Meredith received a big free-agent deal from the New Orleans Saints.

Nickel cornerback Bryce Callahan and five-technique Roy Robertson-Harris are two more of Pace's special finds poised to make significant contributions.

Other than Nall's heroics, the biggest play of the preseason finale was a first-quarter, 33-yard pick-6 from Doran Grant, a second-year street free agent originally drafted in the fourth round out of Ohio State by the Pittsburgh Steelers.

It was Grant's second pick of the exhibition season and might put him over the top for the team's final spot in the secondary in a really competitive battle with Toliver, Joseph and veteran Marcus Cooper.

Nagy definitely has been given the most talented roster of the Pace regime, in large part because of the lesser-known, unfinished projects such as Nall that the GM has discovered.

All that remains now of the longest Bears exhibition season in recent memory is about 36 hours of anxiety for three or four dozen of these young men awaiting their final fate, and the unveiling of the actual 2018 Chicago Bears.

• Hub Arkush, the executive editor of Pro Football Weekly, can be reached at harkush@profootballweekly.com or on Twitter @Hub_Arkush.