Line Help for Justin Fields in Many Mocks

Post-trade mock drafts are starting to formulate a Bears plan and among those are two real surprises that could indicate a potential bargain selection at No. 9.
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Post trade mocks have started to migrate to a few particular Bears target positions, if not players.

A few players are not surprises. Another might be a complete surprise.

Todd McShay's post-trade mock had the Bears selecting a very predictable target and one they were looking at on Tuesday at Pro Day in Evanston, tackle Peter Skoronski.

Even in choosing Skoronski, McShay admits the guard has short (32 1/4-inch) arms and 34 inches is more the standard, but points out how Skoronski is "...sudden, almost always balanced in his set and powerful."

A blocker for Justin Fields is the general consensus at the moment for many mock drafts. NFLmockdraftdatabase.com has surveyed 570 mock drafts and now the Bears are mocking toward Ohio State tackle Paris Johnson. A

 friend and former teammate of Fields, Johnson is polling on 32% of mocks for the Bears now. The mock draft database also does a big board consensus and Johnson comes in at 10th on the big board so selecting him ninth wouldn't be out of the question for the bears.

CBS Sports' mock drafts have now all weighed in with their four mock drafters in post-trade down mode, and most of them are going a different direction toward defense.

Two, Ryan Wilson and Kyle Stackpole, believe Clemson pass rusher Myles Murphy is the best avenue for the Bears while Josh Edwards had the same idea but a different player with Lukas Van Ness.

The outlyer here for the Bears is Chris Trapasso, who believes they'll draft a receiver even after acquiring D.J. Moore in the trade down out of the top spot with Carolina. He has Justin Fields favorite Jaxon Smith-Njigba going to the Bears.

Two mock drafts conducted after the trade have the Bears taking the surprise entry into their

The surprise player is one many mocks had them taking initially, like, before the combine. That player is Georgia defensive tackle Jalen Carter. At No. 9 in the draft, there's little doubt Carter would be a colossal value pick for the Bears provided they can get over the character questions resulting from the racing and reckless driving charges he faces.

One of those two mock drafts was conducted by The33rdTeam.com, the website that brought everyone Mike Martz as an analyst and also had Justin Fields being traded by the Bears in their earlier mock.

The other mock sending Carter to the Bears at No. 9 is from reliable Walterfootball.com.

In fact, the mock goes a little beyond just mocking Carter to the Bears as it's pointed out by WalterFootball.com's Charlie Campbell that: "The Bears have been digging in hard on Jalen Carter."

They also saw plenty of evidence of digging going on by the Bears going with Johnson, the Buckeyes tackle.

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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.