One of the stranger aspects of Bears’ fandom since the Lovie Smith era has been the Bears’ general draft strategy. We witnessed two reset-the-franchise picks under Ryan Pace (Trubisky, Fields) mixed in with aggressively trading away draft picks as if the team were just a player or two away from contender status. It was an odd but telling combination for one of the worst teams in football over the past decade.

Ryan Poles has reversed some of those trends – the Bears have held more than the standard seven draft picks in three of his four drafts – but his first two years at the helm still saw the Bears treading a familiar path, selecting five defensive players out of seven total picks in the first three rounds.

We all knew what was coming in ’24, but for me, the 2025 draft comes as a revelation in the wake of Bears history – in my 31 years of Bears’ fandom, I cannot recall a draft approach quite like this one.

First, some historical notes: since the modern-day seven round draft commenced in 1993, the Bears have selected offensive players with their first three picks seven times (which surprised me). The 2024 and ’25 drafts mark the first time in the modern draft era in which the Bears drafted three offensive players at the top of the draft in back-to-back year.

This offense-first draft focus in back-to-back years is extremely rare for the Bears in the overall history of the NFL draft.  Only the 1945-46 drafts and the 1941, ’42 and ’43 drafts saw the Bears select three offensive players at the top of each draft (position names back then are a bit wonky, so forgive me if I got that wrong).

Pro Football Reference has all the gory details, like the cherished 1997 draft that brought TE John Allred, G Bob Sapp and RB Darnell Autry to the Bears with their first three selections.

But back to the hopefully good stuff of ’25:

• While the Colston Loveland pick has its critics (preference for Warren, too high of a selection for a TE), we should appreciate this pick for its glass-breaking novelty. The Bears have a solid TE under contract (Cole Kmet), and they went out and picked another one anyways! Perhaps this is foolish for a 5-win team, but have we ever seen such an attitude from the Bears? The only comparison I can think of was the selection of Cedric Benson in ’05 with Thomas Jones under contract.
• The selection of Luther Burden follows a similar trend. Olamide Zaccheaus is a perfectly acceptable football player and slot receiver. In virtually any other era of Bears football, the Bears would have been “set” at WR going into the draft. And yet, the Bears aimed to improve a critical position group in the modern game.
• Ozzy Trapilo once again breaks the mold. The Bears have an offensive line that, on paper, is at least OK. The Bears even have a developmental tackle with real draft capital in Kiran Amegadjie. For the first time in a very long time, “OK” and “let’s start Arlington Hambright” is no longer good enough for the offensive line.

Of course, bucking history only has value as a narrative. The draft is an annual crapshoot, and Loveland, Burden and Trapiilo may all bust. But for at least a brief moment, Bears fans should savor the feeling that the franchise is, for once, trying a different approach.