Bears GM Ryan Pace goes drafting and wisely puts on his sensible shoes

Ryan Pace did what he needed to do in the NFL Draft, did what needed to be done, and for that, he deserves some applause before the questioning commences. Done clapping? Wonderful.

Let’s start with the simple, obvious question, given his history: Did the Bears general manager try to be a genius in this year’s draft? No, he did not. He zeroed in on positions of need for a team with more than a few holes and no first-round pick. Good. Very good.

Now we move on to the more nuanced question: Can the players he chose in the second round, Notre Dame tight end Cole Kmet and Utah cornerback Jaylon Johnson, actually, you know, play? When it comes to something as unpredictable as the draft, no one can say for sure.

What we can say is that neither player is a reach, the way quarterback Mitch Trubisky and tight end Adam Shaheen were in 2017. That was when Pace was in full Mensa mode, trying to outsmart a league that didn’t see as much meaning in Trubisky’s beater of a car or as much hidden upside in Shaheen as he did.

The Bears need players who can catch footballs, on offense and defense. Trubisky, for all his shortcomings, didn’t exactly have an all-star cast of receiving targets in 2019. And the Bears’ defense, which led the NFL with 27 interceptions in 2018, tied for 25^th last season with 10.

Needs exposed, needs filled.

Kmet has been compared to Tampa Bay tight end Rob Gronkowski because he’s white, because he has good hands and because he’s white. He has the distinction of being a hometown kid, having grown up in Lake Barrington and attended St. Viator High School. This will come in handy as he tries to stand out on a team that has 10 tight ends on its roster. There will be a tight end meeting room, a tight end annex and a tight end car dealership at Halas Hall.

For his offense to work, coach Matt Nagy needs a talented, very involved tight end. That was supposed to be Trey Burton, but injuries had other ideas. The Bears signed former Saint and Packer Jimmy Graham this offseason, but very few people seem to think he’s the answer, unless the question is, “How the hell old is he?” He turns 34 in November. With the drafting of Kmet, you wonder how much even the Bears believe in Graham.

Johnson was clearly irritated he didn’t go in the first round, but recent surgery to repair a torn labrum might have made teams leery. If only the healing properties of Lysol had been known earlier. But his loss is the Bears’ gain, or at least they think it is. We’ll see, as with any draft and with any selection.

If healthy, though, and if as good as the Bears say he is, Johnson has an excellent chance to start at cornerback in 2020.

Every draft, NFL executives kneel at the altar of “best player available.’’ They pledge allegiance to that idea, and they wax poetic about it. But it’s not always realistic, and sometimes it’s just stupid. The Bears are in a win-now mode, possibly with jobs on the line if they don’t improve on last season’s 8-8 record. Perhaps there was a better pass rusher on the board than a tight end and a cornerback when the Bears chose 43^rd and 50^th Friday. But there were too many holes to fill elsewhere. You can rightly blame those holes on Pace’s past drafting, but this is where the Bears are. This is their reality.

So drafting for need: sometimes a good thing. Then there’s what the Packers did. They chose Utah State quarterback Jordan Love 26th overall on Thursday, even though they have Aaron Rodgers, arguably the best quarterback on the planet, and even though they won the NFC North last season with a 13-3 record.

Love might turn out to be great someday, might turn out to be the new version of Rodgers in a remake of the Brett Favre-Rodgers drama, but his selection allows the 2020 Bears to say that they had as good a first round as the Packers did.

Pace has been very up and down in the draft, so it would be silly to say he came out a winner this time. In the same year he reached on Trubisky and Shaheen in the first two rounds, he hit with safety Eddie Jackson in the fourth. In 2016, when he swung and made weak contact by taking linebacker Leonard Floyd ninth overall, he landed Jordan Howard, who would be a productive Bears running back for a few years, in the fifth round.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Pace was right about his top two choices this season? Or all of them? Feel free to hope.

At the very least, feel free to revel in the idea that Pace went the smart route, not the daring one. He chose sensible shoes. Nothing wrong with that. Unless they don’t fit.