Chicago Bears Draft: Taking a mid round swing on Stanford QB Davis Mills

The Chicago Bears quarterback situation is a daily hot topic. For as much derision that’s been thrown towards the Andy Dalton signing, he was an above-average starting quarterback for 8 seasons with three Pro Bowls to his name.  Since Dalton is on the back nine of his career, he can be an excellent placeholder but it certainly sets the table for the Bears drafting a QB.

All the big names have been bandied about but the Bears will have to shoot into the Top 10 (if not Top 7) to get a crack at Wilson or Fields, both of which have their pros and cons due to either one season of work or lack of completion in the case of Fields. The only possible name that may fall even close to pick 20 is North Dakota’s, Trey Lance.

One player who has literally and figuratively flown under the radar but possesses much more pedigree is Stanford’s, Davis Mills. It seems highly unlikely for a former five-star recruit like Mills to have fallen through the cracks but due to a litany of knee injuries, that’s exactly what happened. In fact, he has just wrapped up his senior year and has only played in 11 games in his four seasons.

For those that follow rivals, does a five-star ranking guarantees a successful NFL career? Not in all cases but it provides some legitimacy. For every Hunter Johnson who transferred from Clemson and flamed out at Northwestern, there have been big hits.

Mills was the number one pocket QB in what ended up being quite the uninspiring class of QB’s, save for maybe former Georgia QB Jake Fromm, current Miami Dolphin Tua Tagovailoa, and buried way down on the rankings, the 18th overall QB prospect overall that year, Alabama’s Mac Jones.

Stanford is known to churn out Offensive linemen, tight ends, and the occasional running back (besides Christian McCaffrey). Since Andrew Luck, luminaries at the QB spot like KJ Costello and Kevin Hogan have gone unnoticed by NFL Scouts. Mills may be very different in this case. He has put up very good tape, making throws that fall in sync with his “pedigree”.

This isn’t a case of a four-star QB blooming in college, it just might be a talented guy with minimal reps. As well, his reps have considerably more value because Stanford plays in a pro-style offense instead of the very common one read spread offenses now ubiquitous throughout college and trickling into the pros.

Mills has been looked upon as a mid-round pick and with QB’s showing any semblance of ability being pushed up the draft board out of sheer demand, the Bears may get a great value. In this case, the Bears would be banking on past pedigree instead of the quantity of college production.