Bears Pre-Senior Bowl 7 rounds 2021 NFL Mock Draft

The Chicago Bears enter the 2021 offseason in a delicate position. They finished the season on a hot streak and made the playoffs, but they also feel like a team in need of some serious rebuilding and currently lacking third and fourth rounds. NFL Draft choice. In this Bears 2021 NFL 7-round draft, Chicago finally finds a quarterback from the future to build and adds an elite piece to their secondary.

Bears Pre-Senior Bowl 7 rounds 2021 NFL Mock Draft

• Round 1, Pick 11: Zach Wilson, QB, BYU *
• Round 2, choice 52: Hamsah Nasirildeen, S, FSU
• Round 5, Choice 147: Thayer Munford, OT, State of Ohio
• Round 6, Pick 178: Tyler Vaughns, WR, USC
• Round 7, Choice 194: Kylen Granson, TE, SMU

* Trade

• Bears receive 11th overall in 2021 New York Giants NFL Draft
• The Giants receive the 20th and 83rd caps overall in the 2021 NFL Draft and Chicago’s first and third round picks in the 2022 NFL Draft.

Bears 2021 NFL Mock Draft 7 rounds selection analysis

Zach Wilson, QB, BYU

Finding a true franchise quarterback is the top priority in this Bears 2021 NFL 7-round Draft. The Windy City has been hungry for this product for too long and Zach Wilson could fill that void.

At quarterback, Chicago currently has Mitch Trubisky and Nick Foles, but neither is an attractive option. Trubisky showed flashes all over the place, but it looks like a fool’s gold. He’s also set to become an unrestricted free agent this offseason. Meanwhile, Nick Foles was a demotion from the first-round bust. Sadly, his death cap is big enough to keep him going in 2021 in all likelihood.

As a result, the Bears can no longer solve the quarterback issue and they will no longer have the money to target a high-end veteran.

Enter Zach Wilson, the franchise quarterback the Bears have been chasing since Sid Luckman retired.

Zach Wilson’s strengths and weaknesses

Wilson has a formidable arm and at times shows a ridiculous level of precision. He is also balanced in the pocket and knows how to manipulate protection to keep a piece alive. This will be a key trait for any Bears quarterback as Chicago’s offensive line rebuilds itself.

This mix of arm talent and functional mobility is the tantalizing aspect of Zach Wilson. This makes him come across as a premium version of what Baker Mayfield was as a prospect.

There are a lot of reasonable concerns about Wilson, however. While it has spikes in supernatural precision, it can also hit cold stretches where it will force wide receivers to make adjustments for the ball. Its mechanisms are not fully polished either and its base may be too wide.

However, those punches aren’t enough to make the Bears second guess that choice. He is suitable for anything they would want in a franchise quarterback. Landing him with the eleventh pick is stealing.

Trade to Fish Zach Wilson

In order to draft Wilson in this Bears 2021 NFL 7-round draft, Chicago had to trade.

Some might object to the trade, as the Bears are still recovering from trading multiple picks against the Las Vegas Raiders for Khalil Mack, but it’s different.

It’s a profession to land the kind of franchise that QB Chicago hasn’t had in half a century. Not a job to land one of the best defensive players in the NFL.

As Wilson began to fall into the draft board, the Bears attempted trades with the Eagles and Panthers before finally making a deal with the Giants. In exchange for the 11th overall, the Bears fired their first and third round picks in this year’s and next year’s draft.

It’s expensive enough to move nine slots, but it allows Chicago to hold onto their second-round picks for each of the next two seasons. It also allows them to start building again around a talented young quarterback.

Hamsah Nasirildeen, S, State of Florida

The Bears secondary has a ton of pieces to build to get going. They have elite free security to Eddie Jackson and two renowned cornerbacks to Kyle Fuller and rookie Jaylon Johnson. However, the security point next to Jackson remains a hole.

Their two best securities, Tashaun Gipson and Deon Bush, are replacement level. They also have expiring contracts and Chicago is unlikely to bring them back.

The selection of Hamsah Nasirildeen in this Bears 2021 NFL 7-round draft would be an upgrade there and give Chicago a more than promising future in high school.

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You cannot stress enough how special Nasirildeen is from an athletic standpoint. It is shaken and has a high speed to transport receivers or tight ends downstream. Nasirildeen also has a well-built frame which is long but sturdy.

In addition to athleticism, Nasirildeen also showed great versatility on the defense of the Seminoles. He played well on the top, in the slot machine and in the box, despite being at his best in football. His ability as a downstream flying striker to blast a running back is particularly impressive.

The red flags with Nasirildeen are quite minor which makes it surprising to see him thrown in the second round. He tore up his ACL in 2019, but has been healthy this season. He also relies heavily on his athleticism to make cover plays, as well as in rushing passes. He will therefore have to refine the more technical aspects of these roles at the next level.

Thayer Munford, OT, State of Ohio

Chicago’s next selection isn’t until the fifth round due to their trade with New York. However, they still manage to land an exciting prospect of development material.

Thayer Munford of Ohio state already looks like an NFL tackle at 6-foot-6, 325 pounds. He also has desirable arm length and strong movement abilities, which, along with his mammoth size, will make him a headache for opposite edge rushers.

Munford’s problem is that there aren’t many promising traits outside of this fantastic set of tools. His feet are rough and he has a hard time planting, which doesn’t make sense given the aforementioned frame. He’s also always late with his hands, which digs him into a hole he doesn’t yet have the skills to dig.

Still, Munford makes sense to the Bears as a fifth-round tackle. You’ll rarely see a tackle with that athletic profile drop this far in the draft, and between Bobby Massie and Charles Leno, Chicago has starters in place that will allow them to develop Munford.

Tyler Vaughns, WR, USC

Chicago will almost certainly lose Allen Robinson to free agency, so they’ll have to try to find a way to replace him in this Bears 2021 NFL 7-round draft.

Ideally, they would target a wide receiver earlier in the project, but the board didn’t fall that way this time around. That said, landing Tyler Vaughns in the sixth round isn’t a bad consolation prize.

Vaughns doesn’t have groundbreaking speed, but he has shown top-notch hands and endurance. He will attack the ball in the air and do a good job of surviving contact to bring back the capture. Vaughns is also a smart player who has shown his ability to operate both on the outside and in the slot, and he knows where to attack the defense.

The worry Chicago should have with Vaughns is that he’s having a hard time breaking up, which is unsettling. He can’t part with pure athletics just by speed or power. He is not an elite runner either. As a result, he has to fight tooth and nail for almost any catch. This is a strategy that will be much more difficult to be successful with in the NFL than in the Pac-12.

Kylen Granson, TE, SMU

The Bears just spent their first pick in the 2020 NFL Draft against tight end Cole Kmet, but Kylen Granson is too good-looking to pass here.

Granson is an athletic tight end who could replace and potentially improve Jimmy Graham. He won’t offer much as a blocker, but it’s a matchmaking nightmare that could quickly become a go-to red zone option.

However, Granson plays more like a thick wide receiver than a tight end, which makes him quite one-dimensional. Plus, it doesn’t have the size advantage that you would like to see on a tight side of this style.

If Chicago picked Granson, it could allow Kmet to be their tight end in a handyman line which is a focal point of the attack, while Granson is used as a counter punch.

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