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https://www.chicagotribune.com/spor...n-white-sunday-storylines-20181206-story.html
The Kevin White-over-Todd Gurley pick, Mitch Trubisky’s beach-house roommate
Dan Wiederer
‘With the seventh pick in the 2015 NFL draft …’
On the night Ryan Pace made his first draft pick as an NFL general manager, he came bounding into the PNC Center at Halas Hall with a wide smile and uncontrollable excitement in his voice. The Bears had just selected West Virginia receiver Kevin White with the No. 7 pick, and Pace was confident he had hit a home run.
“I know I spoke about getting impact players in the draft, especially when you’re picking in the top 10, and that’s exactly what Kevin White is,” Pace said that night. “We couldn’t be more thrilled right now. This guy’s dynamic. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s ultracompetitive.”
The Bears were envisioning big things with a pairing of White and Alshon Jeffery at receiver.
Pace called White “a special athlete.” He praised his “fire and energy.” He called it “an easy pick.”
In the minutes after Pace picked White, the first round hummed onward. The Falcons grabbed edge rusher Vic Beasley at No. 8. The Giants used the ninth pick on offensive lineman Ereck Flowers. Then Rams general manager Les Snead scooped up running back Todd Gurley at No. 10, and that organization expressed its excitement in a different news conference in a different city.
“This is the running back of our future,” then-coach Jeff Fisher said on draft night.
That first night of the draft is always an explosion of hope, a hype-filled pinata rupturing across the NFL with teams and their fans believing in best-case scenarios. Who knew, at the time, how things would play out?
Forty-three months later, it’s clear the Bears swung and missed on White while the Rams got everything they wanted and more from Gurley.
When the Rams visit Soldier Field on Sunday, both top-10 picks from 2015 will be in attendance. White, though, might be a healthy scratch for the fifth time this year after injuries derailed his first three seasons. Gurley, meanwhile, remains the engine of a high-powered offense that has given the 11-1 Rams the league’s best record.
Paul Sancya / AP
White’s time in Chicago is drawing to an end, his rookie contract likely to expire in March. Gurley signed a four-year extension in July worth up to $57.5 million with $45 million guaranteed.
White has made 24 catches in his career. Gurley has 54 touchdowns and more than 6,000 yards from scrimmage and is in the conversation as a legitimate MVP candidate.
So why, you might ask, did the Bears not draft Gurley when they had the chance?
In retrospect, it was a miscalculation. At the time, the Bears believed White filled a bigger need and would become a highly productive NFL player. They also couldn’t predict the injury bug would keep biting the young receiver.
The notion that the Bears under Pace always use a “best player available” approach to drafting is technically correct. But it has to be pointed out that Pace and his staff don’t work off an itemized ranking list. Instead, they group players with similar draft grades in clouds, then match those clouds with team needs. That’s what happened in the White-over-Gurley decision in 2015 with both players grouped in the same cloud of candidates for the No. 7 pick.
The Bears believed they had bigger holes at receiver and, with Matt Forte still on the roster, less urgency to prioritize a running back.
Pace is also a loyal subscriber to the philosophy that teams can find a quality running back without requiring a high-end investment. After passing on Gurley, the Bears drafted Jeremy Langford in the fourth round that year. Pace took a running back on Day 3 in his next two drafts as well: Jordan Howard in the fifth in 2016 and Tarik Cohen in the fourth in 2017.
In fact, after four seasons on the job, running back is the only position group besides punter that Pace hasn’t addressed with either a first-round pick or a high-profile free-agent signing.
Still, what about Gurley’s medical concerns heading into the draft? Wasn’t that the biggest reason some draft experts expected him to last until the late teens or early 20s? How big of a deterrent were those issues in persuading the Bears to go in a different direction?
Not very big actually. Yes, Gurley was coming off a torn anterior cruciate ligament that ended his career at Georgia. But nothing in the Bears’ pre-draft research indicated he wouldn’t make a full recovery. It was simply a matter of when.
The Rams, you’ll recall, brought Gurley along slowly in his rookie season. He sat out the first two games, then took just six carries in his NFL debut in Week 3.
The bigger question for Pace and his staff at draft time was determining whether a full-strength Gurley would become the type of rare game-changing back who was worth a top-10 pick.
In that discussion, there was no clear-cut consensus in league circles heading into the draft. NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock had Melvin Gordon as the No. 1 back in the class and Gurley at No. 2.
“Todd Gurley is a home-run hitter,” Mayock said then. “He’s a difference maker. That’s why there’s so much intrigue. When you talk about height, weight, speed, I mean this guy was on the U.S. under-19 hurdle team that went to France when he was 18 years old.
So at 222 pounds, you know he’s a world-class sprinter. And when you look at the big plays he made in the SEC and the high level he played at, it’s easy to see how teams would say, hey, that’s a difference maker for us.”
This was ESPN’s Todd McShay’s assessment of Gurley: “He’s just an absolute freight train as a runner. One cut and go. Lowers his shoulder and he’s like Marshawn Lynch. He just breaks through so many one-on-one tackles.
“And then what separates him from a lot of other big backs is his top-end speed. It’s an elite combination of size and speed. And then the second quality is his pass-catching ability, which no one seems to talk about.
But I was blown away by how comfortable and natural he is catching the football, adjusting to the ball, transitioning from catching the ball and getting up the field quickly. And if you give him some daylight, it’s over. It’s lights out. Once his momentum gets going, he has just rare top-end speed for his size.”
To be fair, similar praise was being heaped on White at that time. Most considered Amari Cooper to be the best receiver in the class, but White’s upside was intriguing. In some circles, he compared favorably to DeAndre Hopkins. His time of 4.35 seconds in the 40-yard dash at the combine was eye-popping. His size, speed and strength were undeniable.
Ultimately, the Bears felt confident White could make a big impact in their offense while filling a significant need. Alas, that didn’t happen.
Forty-three months later, they’ll get an up-close look at arguably the best player they passed on that night.
To be fair, Pace’s subsequent draft success — most notably with Eddie Goldman, Eddie Jackson and Cohen — has helped. But what if Gurley was also part of the equation? If you took Gurley away from the Rams and put him on the Bears, could an argument be made that the Bears would be the better team?
Connections
During his hiatus from Halas Hall last winter, Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky made his way to Newport Beach, Calif., for a beach-house getaway. Training with former NFL quarterback Ryan Lindley. Roommate: Rams quarterback Jared Goff.
Trubisky and Goff are represented by the same agency, Rep 1 Sports. Their connection was by design. In fact, leading up to the 2017 draft, Goff spent time tutoring Trubisky even as he came off his own rocky rookie season.
Last winter’s reunion gave the two quarterbacks a chance to spend much more extensive time together. For Trubisky, the relationship he built with Goff was beneficial.
“He’s an awesome dude,” Trubisky said. “We pushed each other.”
According to Trubisky, they watched film together, talked about offensive philosophies, shared the routes each likes to throw.
As a young quarterback going through the inevitable growing pains, Trubisky appreciated Goff’s perspective.
As a rookie in 2016, Goff threw more interceptions (seven) than touchdown passes (five) and had an unsettling 63.6 passer rating. The harshest critics were lobbing the “bust” label at the former No. 1 pick.
But then the Rams brought in coach Sean McVay and Goff took off. In 27 starts the last two seasons, he has completed 64.1 percent of his passes for 7,558 yards with 55 touchdowns and 14 interceptions.
Trubisky listened to Goff detail what happened for him once he paired with a young, energetic offensive mind and was given better weapons to work with.
“Obviously you get more and more experienced,” Trubisky said. “You get more and more comfortable. You get different pieces around you. You start to own the offense really.
“At first you’re learning it and then you own it and hopefully you get to the point where you master it.”
Trubisky came to admire Goff’s approach, something he has tried to emulate.
“What I appreciate about Jared is that he has never really been shaken,” Trubisky said. “A lot of people wrote him off after that first year. But watching him and how he handled himself, he’s very composed. Never really rattled. He believed in himself and has had really two amazing years since then. So I know you just have to have confidence in yourself so your teammates will believe in you as well.”
The Kevin White-over-Todd Gurley pick, Mitch Trubisky’s beach-house roommate
Dan Wiederer
‘With the seventh pick in the 2015 NFL draft …’
On the night Ryan Pace made his first draft pick as an NFL general manager, he came bounding into the PNC Center at Halas Hall with a wide smile and uncontrollable excitement in his voice. The Bears had just selected West Virginia receiver Kevin White with the No. 7 pick, and Pace was confident he had hit a home run.
“I know I spoke about getting impact players in the draft, especially when you’re picking in the top 10, and that’s exactly what Kevin White is,” Pace said that night. “We couldn’t be more thrilled right now. This guy’s dynamic. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s ultracompetitive.”
The Bears were envisioning big things with a pairing of White and Alshon Jeffery at receiver.
Pace called White “a special athlete.” He praised his “fire and energy.” He called it “an easy pick.”
In the minutes after Pace picked White, the first round hummed onward. The Falcons grabbed edge rusher Vic Beasley at No. 8. The Giants used the ninth pick on offensive lineman Ereck Flowers. Then Rams general manager Les Snead scooped up running back Todd Gurley at No. 10, and that organization expressed its excitement in a different news conference in a different city.
“This is the running back of our future,” then-coach Jeff Fisher said on draft night.
That first night of the draft is always an explosion of hope, a hype-filled pinata rupturing across the NFL with teams and their fans believing in best-case scenarios. Who knew, at the time, how things would play out?
Forty-three months later, it’s clear the Bears swung and missed on White while the Rams got everything they wanted and more from Gurley.
When the Rams visit Soldier Field on Sunday, both top-10 picks from 2015 will be in attendance. White, though, might be a healthy scratch for the fifth time this year after injuries derailed his first three seasons. Gurley, meanwhile, remains the engine of a high-powered offense that has given the 11-1 Rams the league’s best record.
Paul Sancya / AP
White’s time in Chicago is drawing to an end, his rookie contract likely to expire in March. Gurley signed a four-year extension in July worth up to $57.5 million with $45 million guaranteed.
White has made 24 catches in his career. Gurley has 54 touchdowns and more than 6,000 yards from scrimmage and is in the conversation as a legitimate MVP candidate.
So why, you might ask, did the Bears not draft Gurley when they had the chance?
In retrospect, it was a miscalculation. At the time, the Bears believed White filled a bigger need and would become a highly productive NFL player. They also couldn’t predict the injury bug would keep biting the young receiver.
The notion that the Bears under Pace always use a “best player available” approach to drafting is technically correct. But it has to be pointed out that Pace and his staff don’t work off an itemized ranking list. Instead, they group players with similar draft grades in clouds, then match those clouds with team needs. That’s what happened in the White-over-Gurley decision in 2015 with both players grouped in the same cloud of candidates for the No. 7 pick.
The Bears believed they had bigger holes at receiver and, with Matt Forte still on the roster, less urgency to prioritize a running back.
Pace is also a loyal subscriber to the philosophy that teams can find a quality running back without requiring a high-end investment. After passing on Gurley, the Bears drafted Jeremy Langford in the fourth round that year. Pace took a running back on Day 3 in his next two drafts as well: Jordan Howard in the fifth in 2016 and Tarik Cohen in the fourth in 2017.
In fact, after four seasons on the job, running back is the only position group besides punter that Pace hasn’t addressed with either a first-round pick or a high-profile free-agent signing.
Still, what about Gurley’s medical concerns heading into the draft? Wasn’t that the biggest reason some draft experts expected him to last until the late teens or early 20s? How big of a deterrent were those issues in persuading the Bears to go in a different direction?
Not very big actually. Yes, Gurley was coming off a torn anterior cruciate ligament that ended his career at Georgia. But nothing in the Bears’ pre-draft research indicated he wouldn’t make a full recovery. It was simply a matter of when.
The Rams, you’ll recall, brought Gurley along slowly in his rookie season. He sat out the first two games, then took just six carries in his NFL debut in Week 3.
The bigger question for Pace and his staff at draft time was determining whether a full-strength Gurley would become the type of rare game-changing back who was worth a top-10 pick.
In that discussion, there was no clear-cut consensus in league circles heading into the draft. NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock had Melvin Gordon as the No. 1 back in the class and Gurley at No. 2.
“Todd Gurley is a home-run hitter,” Mayock said then. “He’s a difference maker. That’s why there’s so much intrigue. When you talk about height, weight, speed, I mean this guy was on the U.S. under-19 hurdle team that went to France when he was 18 years old.
So at 222 pounds, you know he’s a world-class sprinter. And when you look at the big plays he made in the SEC and the high level he played at, it’s easy to see how teams would say, hey, that’s a difference maker for us.”
This was ESPN’s Todd McShay’s assessment of Gurley: “He’s just an absolute freight train as a runner. One cut and go. Lowers his shoulder and he’s like Marshawn Lynch. He just breaks through so many one-on-one tackles.
“And then what separates him from a lot of other big backs is his top-end speed. It’s an elite combination of size and speed. And then the second quality is his pass-catching ability, which no one seems to talk about.
But I was blown away by how comfortable and natural he is catching the football, adjusting to the ball, transitioning from catching the ball and getting up the field quickly. And if you give him some daylight, it’s over. It’s lights out. Once his momentum gets going, he has just rare top-end speed for his size.”
To be fair, similar praise was being heaped on White at that time. Most considered Amari Cooper to be the best receiver in the class, but White’s upside was intriguing. In some circles, he compared favorably to DeAndre Hopkins. His time of 4.35 seconds in the 40-yard dash at the combine was eye-popping. His size, speed and strength were undeniable.
Ultimately, the Bears felt confident White could make a big impact in their offense while filling a significant need. Alas, that didn’t happen.
Forty-three months later, they’ll get an up-close look at arguably the best player they passed on that night.
To be fair, Pace’s subsequent draft success — most notably with Eddie Goldman, Eddie Jackson and Cohen — has helped. But what if Gurley was also part of the equation? If you took Gurley away from the Rams and put him on the Bears, could an argument be made that the Bears would be the better team?
Connections
During his hiatus from Halas Hall last winter, Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky made his way to Newport Beach, Calif., for a beach-house getaway. Training with former NFL quarterback Ryan Lindley. Roommate: Rams quarterback Jared Goff.
Trubisky and Goff are represented by the same agency, Rep 1 Sports. Their connection was by design. In fact, leading up to the 2017 draft, Goff spent time tutoring Trubisky even as he came off his own rocky rookie season.
Last winter’s reunion gave the two quarterbacks a chance to spend much more extensive time together. For Trubisky, the relationship he built with Goff was beneficial.
“He’s an awesome dude,” Trubisky said. “We pushed each other.”
According to Trubisky, they watched film together, talked about offensive philosophies, shared the routes each likes to throw.
As a young quarterback going through the inevitable growing pains, Trubisky appreciated Goff’s perspective.
As a rookie in 2016, Goff threw more interceptions (seven) than touchdown passes (five) and had an unsettling 63.6 passer rating. The harshest critics were lobbing the “bust” label at the former No. 1 pick.
But then the Rams brought in coach Sean McVay and Goff took off. In 27 starts the last two seasons, he has completed 64.1 percent of his passes for 7,558 yards with 55 touchdowns and 14 interceptions.
Trubisky listened to Goff detail what happened for him once he paired with a young, energetic offensive mind and was given better weapons to work with.
“Obviously you get more and more experienced,” Trubisky said. “You get more and more comfortable. You get different pieces around you. You start to own the offense really.
“At first you’re learning it and then you own it and hopefully you get to the point where you master it.”
Trubisky came to admire Goff’s approach, something he has tried to emulate.
“What I appreciate about Jared is that he has never really been shaken,” Trubisky said. “A lot of people wrote him off after that first year. But watching him and how he handled himself, he’s very composed. Never really rattled. He believed in himself and has had really two amazing years since then. So I know you just have to have confidence in yourself so your teammates will believe in you as well.”
