The Ideal Bears Receiver?
Former NFL player and Chicago area guy Matt Bowen is and always has been among the best analysts at breaking down film.
The ESPN contributor and high school football assistant in the Chicago area has come up with a wide receiver who is the best fit for the Bears in this draft in an article assigning the draft's best receivers to each team.
Considering the Bears do not pick until No. 39, they're going to miss plenty of receivers who could help, and Bowen assigned those players to teams who draft ahead of them.
Apparently Bowen took into account the great need the Bears have at other positions as well, as he assigned Cincinnati's Alec Pierce to them.
The 6-foot-3, 211-pounder is home-grown, from west suburban Glenbard West High School.
Bowen had Pierce going as an ideal pick to the Bears in Round 3, which makes sense considering he has every top receiver except Western Michigan's Skyy Moore and North Dakota State's Christian Watson going to teams who pick ahead of No. 39, and and both Moore and Watson being ideal fits for teams just before the Bears pick again at No. 48.
Bowen thinks Pierce helps upgrade the receiver corps for quarterback Justin Fields because it gives them "...alignment flexibility as a big target who is at his best on the move, running verticals, overs, crossers and speed outs."
He also cites Pierce's impressive day at the combine, with a 4.41-second 40 time.
Among the other top wide receivers, Bowen felt Ohio State's Garrett Wilson and Atlanta were ideal fits, USC's Drake London and the Jets, Alabama's Jameson Williams and the Saints, Arkansas' Treylon Burks and the Cowboys, Ohio State's Chris Olave and the Cardinals, Georgia's George Pickens and the Packers. That meant he had six wide receivers as ideal Round 1 fits. In Round 2, he had Moore and the Colts, Watson and the Browns and South Alabama's Jalen Tolbert and Kansas City before the Bears and Pierce in Round 3.
Overall, Bowen made these fits with the top 15 wide receivers and did not regard Purdue's David Bell as a top 15 receiver in the draft.
Bell had been a player mocked often to the Bears at the outset of the offseason but a 4.65-second effort in the 40 at the combine didn't help his cause.
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