With the addition of Hambright, the Bears have added someone who they hope can develop into a nice rotational piece to add to their young nucleus of Cody Whitehair and James Daniels in the hopes that they will form the basis of a dominant offensive line for many years to come.

Let’s take a look at what Hambright brings to the table and how he fits into the team’s plans for next season.

Let’s be candid, players selected in the seventh round are a longshot to make the team to begin with, and the Bears seem to be taking a shot with two offensive linemen in the seventh round (Lachavious Simmons being the other). However, Hambright brings something that Ryan Pace has seemed to favor in his offensive linemen — versatility.

Hambright played tackle in college but projects to slide inside to guard at the next level. He has some nice athleticism but will have to clean up some of his technique if he is to have any real impact or even make the team, which is something new offensive line coach Juan Castillo will have to work with him on.

However, adding a nice developmental linemen late in the draft is never a bad thing as it gives them one more player with whom to work in the hopes of catching lightning in a bottle.

As you can see, while there is a lot of talent amongst the group, there are few reliable options at this point, which is why the team needed to add another playmaker to the mix. In steps Mooney who brings the speed to be the receiver the Bears need to take the top off the defense, essentially replacing what they lost in Gabriel.

Mooney ran a blistering 4.38 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine and fits the profile of a Ryan Pace draft pick in the sense that he is an elite athlete, which Pace seems to favor. Mooney is a big-play threat who is a perfect complement to some of the bigger-bodied receivers the Bears have.

After spending the majority of their first four picks on defense, the Bears needed to address the offensive side of the ball and give Nagy another threat to stretch the field. It appears they have done that even if they had to trade up to make it happen. At the end of the day, the offense needed playmakers and they got one.

This move is significant for Chicago for a few reasons. It is their fourth draft selection of 2020 so far and of the four, Vildor is the third defensive player taken. This offensive line needs help in order to properly protect Nick Foles or Mitchell Trubisky and they haven’t addressed it in the draft yet, as we speak. This offense needs to be able to score points more frequently but here they are drafting defense some more.

This news is also significant for a few players on the current Bears roster. Notably, Artie Burns probably really hates this pick. Vildor might be a guy who takes the spot away from Burns which might have him left off the roster by the time final cuts are made later in the fall. Obviously, the most important thing for the Chicago Bears is getting the best players on the field in order to help them win football games.

To win games, you have to have a strong defense. Pace is clearly loading up on defense for a reason.

Vildor was a pretty good defensive back at Georgia Southern. He had 27 total tackles, two interceptions, and six pass deflections. That was a pretty good senior season and he was even better in the year before as a junior with 42 tackles, four interceptions, and 12 pass deflections. If he can bring some of that as a depth player on this Bears’ defense, they will be even more improved.

If you’re like me, your immediate reaction might have been of confusion. However, that’s only natural if it’s not a position you would have expected. Sure, the Bears didn’t go after the offensive line, wide receiver or safety with this pick. But, let’s try and make sense of the Gipson selection.

Last season, the Bears had some injuries up front on their defensive line. We saw both Akiem Hicks and Bilal Nichols miss games at the exact same time, with Hicks missing a large chunk of the season.

In relief, Chicago plugged in veteran defensive lineman Nick Williams. Although Williams is a bit bigger and classifies mostly as a defensive tackle, he filled in extremely well at defensive end. In fact, he played well enough to earn himself a free agent deal this offseason with the Detroit Lions.

So, without Williams, the Bears had to find another defensive lineman to to add for insurance. To me, that’s what they did selecting Gipson in the fifth round.

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In 2019, Gipson registered 8.0 sacks and 15.0 tackles for loss overall.

If you know one thing about Gipson, know this: He’s got a motor. He has one speed, and that’s full speed. Gipson added a bunch of weight over his career at Tulsa in order to get bigger and pack on more muscle, but still possesses a lot of athleticism.

When Gipson gets his hands on you, he’s going to take you down. He rarely lets go, latching onto tackles aggressively. To wrap up well, it helps when you have long arms, and Gipson’s length is one thing that impresses you at first glance.

One thing I notice when I watched him on tape is that he doesn’t have a whole lot of technique when he rushes the passes, and that comes from simply playing so hard all of the time. At the NFL level, he will have to adjust quite a bit and become a more calculated pass rusher.

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The positive, though, is that he is within a defense that boasts a ton of talent. He’s joining a group of guys who could be the top unit in all of the NFL, and being able to develop next to that type of talent is a huge advantage.

During the analysis of this selection, Trey Wingo brought in ESPN’s Adam Schefter to speak on how this connects to the Bears and their quarterback competition with Foles and Mitchell Trubisky.

Schefter immediately brought up the fact that the Bears have to make a decision on whether or not to exercise Trubisky’s fifth-year option. His thoughts on the matter? There is no chance general manager Ryan Pace exercises the option.

The excerpt from NFL Network and ESPN’s broadcast is as follows:

“The Bears haven’t said anything publicly about whether or not they will pick up the fifth-year option in Trubisky’s contract, but when you talk to people around they league, they don’t believe the Bears will.”

Schefter also tweeted the news:

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This is probably what most have been thinking for a while now, but with Schefter’s name on the report, it becomes everything but set in stone. Trubisky very well might be in his last season with the Bears as we speak, and I for one am completely satisfied with that.

When Chicago brought in Foles, they did it with purpose. Foles wouldn’t have agreed to restructuring his contract if he didn’t think he had a good shot to become the starting quarterback for the Bears. He did so with good reason.

Now, could Trubisky end up back in Chicago as the team’s second string quarterback in 2021? That’s not out of the realm of possibilities, but it also depends on how the rest of the league views next year’s draft class headlined by Trevor Lawrence.

When all is said and done, I think Foles wins the job for 2020 and plays well enough for the Bears to be competitive. In 2021, they move on from Trubisky and look to draft the ultimate successor to Foles in next year’s draft.

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For now, we can only hope that both Bears quarterbacks do indeed play well during training camp and the preseason (if there is one), giving the fans hope for this coming season and proving the competition was as useful as Pace thought it would be.

Shortly after the news that Shaheen could be on the move and the contemporaneous release of oft-injured Trey Burton, Pace once again set his sights on a big, athletic tight end, who is drawing comparisons to — you guessed it — Rob Gronkowski.

As the great Yogi Berra once remarked, “it feels like deja-vu all over again.” Though this time around, Pace is certainly hoping for a much different outcome. For his sake, the outcome better be different, as immediately following his selection of Kmet, three players who would have been terrific fits with the Bears (Grant Delpit, Antoine Winfield, and KJ Hamler) came off the board.

In doing so, Pace widened the bullseye on his back. He opted to draft for need over best player available, despite the inherent problems that come with such a strategy. Look, I get it, the tight end position is an important one in Matt Nagy’s offense. However, it is exceedingly rare that a rookie tight end makes any meaningful contributions in their first year.

Under normal circumstances, there would be no concern with allowing Kmet to develop at his own pace. However, the fanbase is growing restless and expectations are to win now with this roster. If he fails to contribute in year one, the groans will become more audible. If he goes the way of Shaheen, he’ll be out of a job.

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Of course, fans are hoping that Pace has learned from his mistakes — particularly when it comes to evaluating the tight end position which, like the quarterback, has not been his strength (Burton, Dion Sims, Shaheen immediately come to mind).

Kmet will hit the ground with a lot of fanfare and support, especially being a local kid who appears to be over the moon at the prospect of playing for the hometown Bears. If he develops into the type of player Pace hopes and needs him to be, well, then, the Bears will have hit the jackpot. Here’s hoping for the latter.