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Chicago Bears legends show up early and often in MMQB All-Time NFL Draft

By Dan Schmelzer

CHICAGO, IL - APRIL 23: Gayle Sayers #40 and Dick Butkus #51 during pre game festivities on the birthday of the ballpark on April 23, 2014 at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois. Today marks the 100th anniversary of the first game ever played in the historic venue. (Photo by David Banks/Getty Images)
CHICAGO, IL - APRIL 23: Gayle Sayers #40 and Dick Butkus #51 during pre game festivities on the birthday of the ballpark on April 23, 2014 at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois. Today marks the 100th anniversary of the first game ever played in the historic venue. (Photo by David Banks/Getty Images) /
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These Chicago Bears legends go extremely early in the MMQB All-Time NFL Draft.

We know that the Chicago Bears have a long and rich history of extending back to the beginning of the National Football League. What we don’t really know is how our favorite Bears legends stack up against other players in different eras.

It is a question that is almost impossible to answer. Are the modern players better than the NFL legends of the past? Today’s NFL has better athletes but they also have science and technology backing them up more than ever before. Peter King and the MMQB crew is trying to determine the best players in NFL history with their All-Time NFL Draft.

The All-Time NFL Draft

King has assembled an incredible panel of NFL minds to put together their all-time draft. There are 12 participants in the MMQB All-Time NFL Draft, including legendary front office members like Ron Wolf, Bill Polian and Ernie Accorsi. There is also a Hall of Fame quarterback (Dan Fouts), perhaps the most respected football historian in the world (John Turney) and a legendary NFL scout (Gil Brandt).

King undoubtedly put together a worthy group to select teams for the All-Time NFL Draft. They explain the process like this:

"“How would you go about building an NFL team if you could draw from a pool of every player in football history? How would Tom Brady, J.J. Watt and Adrian Peterson stack up against the likes of Johnny Unitas, Joe Greene and Jim Brown? Do you go heavy on defense early, knowing you might get an all-time QB down the road, or do you jump on the passer of your dreams? And, most compellingly, who would go No. 1 in a hypothetical draft of all-time players?”"

"“The MMQB set about answering these questions with an intriguing project. This spring we assembled a 12-man panel of personnel experts, football historians and longtime writers to stage The MMQB All-Time NFL Draft—12 “GMs,” constructing a squad—offense, defense and special teams—from the roster of every player in pro football history.”"

The rules are pretty simple. All 12 teams draft 25 players (11 on offense, 11 on defense, one kicker, one punter and one wild card player) and one coach. The results of this draft ended up being extremely interesting.

First-Round

The first overall pick in this all-time draft was New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor, who was taken by Joel Bussert. Ron Wolf took “Mean” Joe Greene with the second pick, followed by Rick Gosselin taking quarterback Johnny Unitas with the third overall pick. Dan Fouts taking (Punter?!?) Ray Guy and John Turney snagging left tackle Anthony Munoz rounded out the top five.

The first round finished up with Jim Brown, Reggie White, Don Hutson, Tom Brady, Otto Graham, Joe Montana and John Elway going with picks six through 12.

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What about the Bears?

We saw our first glimpse of Chicago Bears legends in the second round, where Gil Brandt took Walter Payton with the 18th overall pick. Just a few picks later, Peter King took Gale Sayers at number 21.

An argument could easily be made for Payton in the first round, but having two players taken in the second round of this practice is pretty impressive. Payton and Sayers were also the second and third running backs taken in this practice. So, according to this collection of top NFL minds, the Chicago Bears had two of the three greatest running backs of all-time.

We did not have to wait long to see our next Bear on the list, as Dick Butkus comes in at number 27. Butkus was arguably the best defensive player of his generation and will always be remembered for his physical style of play. This Bears legend undoubtedly deserves to be mentioned at the top of this draft.

While he did most of his damage with the Minnesota Vikings, former Bears Alan Page also showed up in the third round at number 35 overall.

More Windy City legends

We have to wait a bit before we see more Chicago Bears players, but Mike Ditka (the tight end, not the coach) shows up at number 82, followed quickly by Mike Singletary (85) and Richard Dent (94).

Doug Atkins (114), Dan Hampton (117), Ed Sprinkle (169), Devin Hester (173), George Connor (178), Clyde “Bulldog” Turner (180), Bronko Nagurski (206), Stan Jones (230), Danny Fortmann (260), George McAfee (265), Brian Urlacher (275), Greg Olsen (282), Wilber Marshall (287) and Willie Galimore (288) round out the list of selected Chicago Bears players who played more than a couple of years with the team.

Next: Which 2017 Bears will make the Pro Bowl for the first time?

This was a fun practice to look through. It was extremely interesting to see how these great NFL minds compared players between eras. Overall, the Chicago Bears seemed to do well. A lot of their players mentioned are from eras long ago, but this entire practice had a historic lean anyway.

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