Chicago Bears: Wild card Kylie Fitts a diamond in the rough?
This year’s steal of the draft?
As always, we want to be careful with expecting too much from sixth and seventh-round picks. While Fitts possesses tremendous upside, he still has to develop NFL strength and continue developing his arsenal as a pass-rusher if he wants to make up for his lack of elite athleticism.
He’ll also need to get used to standing up on the line of scrimmage more, though his play style ultimately shouldn’t change much otherwise.
So don’t necessarily expect him to come into camp lighting the world on fire. Especially after not playing as much football as he’d like over the past two seasons, he still needs to regain his footing a bit.
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But there’s no denying that Fitts has the tools of a player with more talent than your average sixth-round pick.
And with the outside linebacker rotation somewhat thin behind Floyd and Aaron Lynch, the rookie will get a chance to show his stuff early in training camp provided he stays healthy.
We already know he can rush the passer and has plenty of raw material to develop there. I imagine he could see some early looks as a situational pass-rusher while learning the defensive playbook. But if he shows he can stand up against the run, he’s going to earn some meaningful snaps in 2018.
And the better he and Lynch play opposite Floyd, the more productive Floyd will be. And we’ve already seen what Floyd looks like when he starts getting in a comfort zone.
Next: How drafting Bilal Nichols helps Roquan Smith
In some ways, a healthy, productive Kylie Fitts could be as much of a key to unlocking this defensive’s potential as Roquan Smith. At full strength, he could very well provide the Chicago Bears with a pass-rusher of much higher value than what they got him for.
If he can stay that way, we could look back at this pick as one of Ryan Pace’s finest yet.