Bear Digest

Potential Bears Passing Combination Brewing Before Draft

Rome Odunze and Caleb Williams have apparently become friends and went to Detroit together, and there's more.

Gene Chamberlain

Rome Odunze apparently has struck up a friendship with likely Bears QB Caleb Williams, and reportedly threw passes to him.
Rome Odunze apparently has struck up a friendship with likely Bears QB Caleb Williams, and reportedly threw passes to him. / Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
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Rome Odunze may or may not wind up as the ninth pick of Round 1 in the NFL Draft for the Bears on Thursday night.

What is certain is he's getting to know their new quarterback a little better.

So could pairing them up be a bad thing?

Odunze, Washington's wide receiver, and Caleb Williams took the same flight to Detroit together for the draft and posed for photos they put out on social media.

However, Tom Pelissero of NFL Network tweeted the two not only flew to the draft together but Odunze recently caught passes from Williams, who also was throwing to Bears wide receivers Keenan Allen and DJ Moore.

Does this mean Williams knows something about who the Bears' plan to take at No. 9 after he has been chosen No. 1 overall by the Bears?

It isn't hard to make that argument but taking Odunze in the draft would mean he also would be available to them and that's the problem. All three of the top wide receivers could be gone before No. 9.

ALBERT BREER'S LATEST DRAFT NOTES

During his predraft press conference on Tuesday, Bears GM Ryan Poles did not elaborate on receiver. He did mention all things being equal, he would like an interior defensive lineman as a pass rusher over an edge rusher.

Poles wasn't about to divulge how the draft board they have set up looks, except for a description of its actual physical appearance. He did talk about what kind of players he has up at the top of it, but nothing specifically.

"They've got to impact the football team from a skillset standpoint, but we always are gonna look at some key things when we talk about: passion for the game, coachability, dependability, resilience," Poles said. "Those things are gonna be consistent from the first overall pick to a seventh-round draft pick. We want guys that have that.

THE IMPRESSION CALEB WILLIAMS LEFT ON RYAN POLES AND BEARS PLAYERS

"We have an indicator we put on their tag. We would put a Bear head on their tag, too. Call them the Grizzly, the top Bear, they have those traits."

A lot of Bears fans have to hope Odunze is one of those with a Grizzly tag on the board where his name is.

The tweet by Williams was like a spark setting off an explosion on Bears social media.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.