NEWSLETTER
The Chicago Bears wrapped up NFL Draft weekend by making 10 picks. No, they didn’t fill every vacancy, but second-year GM Ryan Poles added potential starters and intriguing depth options to the mix. We’ll meet the Bears’ 10 draft picks, get to know a bit about their past, and where they project to go moving forward.
NOAH SEWELL (ROUND 5, PICK 148)
• Position: Linebacker
• College: Oregon
• Height, weight, hand size, arm length: 6-1 1/2″, 246 pounds, 10″ hands, 31″ arms
NOAH SEWELL HIGHLIGHTS
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
STRENGTHS
Please stop me if you’ve heard this before, but a Chicago Bears draft pick has alluring athleticism and size for their position.
Sounds good to me.
Two things I like out of my defenders: To show the ability to improve and tackle with consistency.
WEAKNESSES
My solution here would be to limit the times he drops into coverage.
Perhaps this is something that can be cleaned up with film study in combating issues in the open field.
Sewell ran a 4.6 40-yard dash at the Combine, so he is plenty fast. But translating timed speed to game speed isn’t always easy.
RELATIVE ATHLETIC SCORE
Relative Athletic Score grades player measurements on a 0-10 scale and compares them to their contemporaries. It is a unique way to give some of these prospects some more depth and perspective.
WHERE HE FITS
Depth linebacker who can be deployed creatively in a pinch.
Sewell has quite the prospect pedigree. The younger brother of Lions OT Penei, Noah Sewell was a five-star prospect coming out of high school who was the Pac-12’s Freshman Defensive Player of the Year. Sewell earned honorable mention all-conference honors as a freshman and first-team honors as a sophomore. There are some limitations to his game, but his athleticism and skill should provide some opportunities for Head Coach Matt Eberflus and Defensive Coordinator Alan Williams to use him in specific instances. All while developing him as a secondary option on the linebacker depth chart.
After spending gobs of money on T.J. Edwards and Tremaine Edmunds, you might’ve thought the Bears were done adding off-ball linebackers to their defense. But that wasn’t the case as the team took Noah Sewell with a fifth-round pick on Day 3 of the 2023 NFL Draft. At a minimum, Sewell brings competent depth behind the starting trio of Edwards, Edmunds, and Jack Sanborn. Linebacker has traditionally been a position of strength in Chicago. However, depth has been an issue in recent years. Bringing Sewell into the mix fortifies the group. And because we know better than to take depth for granted, this pick made a whole lotta sense for us.
