Bears draft preview: Notre Dame ILB Jaylon Smith a big unknown

Jaylon Smith was supposed to be a Top 5 draft pick next week.

Instead, after suffering a life-changing left knee injury, the Notre Dame linebacker has earned a different superlative.

“It’s turning out to be what I think is the saddest story in this draft,” Todd McShay said this week.

The ESPN analyst said he knows at least two general managers who considered Smith the best player in the draft before the consensus All-American tore multiple knee ligaments during the Fiesta Bowl.

And now?

“If you’re asking me where I project him — I can’t believe I’m saying it — it won’t surprise me if we get to Day 3 and Jaylon Smith’s still on the board,” McShay said.

It pains McShay, and others, to say that. Smith is well respected off the field.

But what will he be on it?

It would be hard for any team to expect the 6-3, 223-pound Smith, who received a medical re-check in Indianapolis last week, to play in 2016.

Teams are concerned about whether he has nerve damage in his knee; recovery differs from person to person. Smith Tweeted this week, along with a video of him working out, that “God is taking care of that nerve.”

It would take a GM confident in his job security, then, to use a pick on a draft-and-stash player — particularly if there’s no guarantee he’ll be the same as the guy who posted 225 tackles combined in his last two seasons with the Irish.

If he were to return to form, though, Smith could be one of the draft’s greatest steals.

At the NFL Scouting Combine, Bears GM Ryan Pace preached the importance of Smith’s medical reports dictating his future. To redshirt Smith would be worlds different than doing the same with receiver Kevin White, whose shin injury was suffered after the draft. The Bears’ first-round pick is expected to return to normal, even with a rod in his shin.

“It’s a long-term decision for whoever drafts me,” Smith said at the Combine. “I’m a guy who will be around for a while playing at an elite level.”

Smith’s injury is unprecedented, though one case comes close. South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore, who was projected as a first-round pick, dislocated his right knee, tore ligaments and suffered nerve damage in 2012. The 49ers drafted him in the fourth round.

He retired two years later without appearing a game.

“I don’t know what the floor is,” McShay said. “I can sit here and speculate. It does seem like some teams think he may never be the same player that he once was.

“And I think for those teams, if he’s not off your board, then you maybe look at him on Day 3. ….

“He is one of the really good individuals and he is one of the hardest working guys in this class. That’s why nothing would surprise me in terms of his recovery, and what he could overcome.”

POSITION SPOTLIGHT – INSIDE LINEBACKER

Rating Bears’ need: Low

The Bears paid a price to turn a lowly inside linebacker corps into one of the league’s best. They gave the Broncos’ Danny Trevathan a four-year, $24.5 million deal and signed the Colts’ Jerrell Freeman to a three-year contract worth $12 million. The two will receive $18 million, guaranteed.

The team, then, wouldn’t spend their draft capital on an inside linebacker. Or would they?

Freeman, who turns 30 on May 1, is guaranteed only $1 million after this season. He’s not positioned to be the long-term answer in quite the same way Trevathan is. Drafting and developing his eventual replacement isn’t a high priority, but could make sense.

The Bears’ backups are underwhelming: Jonathan Anderson, Christian Jones and John Timu — all one-time undrafted free agents — will compete for special teams roles.

Best of the best

UCLA’s Myles Jack is a transcendent athlete and great in coverage, the prototype for the modern NFL. The general consensus is that he’ll be selected in the top 10, if not top five.

The arguments against him being selected that high are flimsy. A bit undersized at 6-1, 245 pounds, Jack played in only 26 college games, including three his junior year. His recovery from knee surgery — he tore his right meniscus in September — has some teams concerned. His agent posted video of his workout earlier this week, in part to try to assuage them.

Other options

Alabama’s Reggie Ragland was a dominant college player — he was named SEC Defensive Player of the Year — but needs to find the right fit late in the first round. Darron Lee will be one of a whopping five Ohio State players at the Auditorium Theatre.

The next tier of prospects starts with Missouri’s Kentrell Brothers and continues, likely on Day 3, to Arizona’s Scooby Wright, Temple’s Kyle Matakevich, Florida’s Antonio Morrison and Oklahoma’s Dominique Alexander.

— Patrick Finley