Chicago Bears 2017 mock draft: Latest seven-round look

Josh Reynolds, WR, Texas A&M (6-foot-3, 194 pounds)

We’ve all heard the expression “Speed kills” over the years. It certainly is true in football. If you have great speed on offense, you give yourself many options. You also put the defense on its heels. Defenses usually don’t have many speed players on the field at once. Eventually, a speedy receiver gets open.

Additionally, having speedy receivers on the field wears down the defense. With multiple speedsters, that’s a lot of running around. Do that for four quarters and you’ll have a tired defense ready for your manipulation late in the fourth quarter.

Reynolds offers more speed for the Chicago Bears. They signed Marcus Wheaton and Kendall Wright, giving them a pretty fast receivers unit. You can also add Kevin White’s blazing speed if he actually gets on the field for an extended period. That’s a lot of speed that opposing defenses need to deal with.

Reynolds can extend the field with his speed. He also tracks the ball well, and with his track experience in the triple jump and high jump, his quarterback can just throw it up high where only he can catch it. That is valuable for a team that struggles in the red zone like the Bears have in the past several seasons.

In his career at Texas A&M, Reynolds amassed 2,788 receiving yards and 30 touchdowns. In 2016, he had two touchdowns of 90 yards or more.

The Bears could also try to utilize Reynolds’ speed in the kicking game. He could be a great weapon to at least gain large chunks of yards. This is something the Bears struggle with. The punt receivers have trouble getting yards, which gives the offense a long field to work with. A lot of those drives end up with no points.

Adding Reynolds gives an amount of speed no Chicago Bears offense has had. This could be the start of a new era of an explosive offense. We saw that in 2013, and that was certainly fun.