There is some understandable excitement regarding edge defender prospect Kylie Fitts.
Fitts was a four-star recruit and top-100 prospect coming out of high school and originally committed to UCLA, but injuries slowed him down after he transferred out to Utah. First-year head coach Matt Nagy seemed to come away impressed with what Fitts showed on Day 1 of training camp, and expressed some optimism regarding his future.
HOWEVER, Nagy wanted to be clear that while he hopes Fitts can make an immediate impact, he cautioned that he didn’t want to put some unfair expectations on the sixth-round pick.
“We obviously hope that, regardless of where he was drafted, we hope that he can help this team,” Nagy said while meeting the media on Friday. “You gotta make the team first, and that’s the number one thing. And if you make it, then you gotta try to help him produce on that side.”
It’s evident that Fitts was doing things that made him stand out in a good way. And while Nagy explained that he was looking forward to going back and watching the tape, he made it a point to note there was a lot of tape to watch because of the number of players the Bears have in camp. Chalk it up to one of the main differences of running a rookie minicamp as a head coach as opposed to participating as a position coach or coordinator.
“That’s one of the neat things of being out here. There’s so much stuff going on,” Nagy said. “There’s so many reps, that tonight, for me to be able to sit down and watch that side of the ball, and see what he looks like will be good.”
In his Friday press conference, Nagy said he wanted to find steals from rookie camp … and Fitts certainly (sigh, here we go again) fits the bill. Fitts has the desirable size and the speed for a prospect, but didn’t get enough opportunities to show off his skills because he was often injured. If Fitts can shake the injury bug, then there shouldn’t be any excuses why he can’t immediately step in as one of the rotation edge defenders this Bears defense so desperately needs.