The Bears have made a move to come up 26 spots to the back of the sixth round. They are sending pick Nos. 239 and 241 in the seventh round to the Bills to move up for Georgia Tech defensive tackle Jordan Van Den Berg. Van Den Berg makes history today as the first ever South African-born player to be selected in the NFL Draft.
Chicago has had a versatile draft up to this point, addressing a different position group with each selection. With this trade up, the Bears have added depth on their defensive interior with a decent amount of potential. It’s been a long road for Van Den Berg, who began his path to the NFL through community college before landing in Happy Valley. After three years in rotation role on the defensive line at Penn State, Van Den Berg transferred to the Yellow Jackets for a starting opportunity.
Starting his time at Georgia Tech coming off the bench, Van Den Berg quickly outperformed his bench role and worked his way into the starting lineup by Week 6. In that first year in Atlanta, Van Dan Berg started to show a knack for disruption with a sack and five tackles for loss. Given the opportunity to play as a full-time starter in 2025, he expanded that production, recording career highs in total tackles (44), sacks (3.0), and tackles for loss (11.0). He comes to the league with an NFL-ready frame but will need to work through some stiffness to be effective at the next level.
The Bears return Gervon Dexter and Grady Jarrett and as likely starters on the interior defensive line and signed Neville Gallimore, Kentavius Street, and James Lynch in free agency to join last year’s second-round pick Shemar Turner and fill out the room. That’s a lot of bodies for Van Den Berg to move past on the depth chart, making it a difficult road to a spot on the 53-man roster. There may be a plan in place for Van Den Berg to end up on the practice squad to start his career, where he will be able to qualify for the NFL’s International Player Pathway Program and not count against the taxi squad’s 16-man limit.
Ely Allen contributed to this post.
How many reaches can you have in one draft my god
They were done for the day and they didn’t wait for the 7th round to finish to start tossing some back.
Let’s get real here. This is like a free guy on the roster. He’s from South Africa so he can stay on the roster and be used as a foreign exception and still have an extra body around. It’s just that simple. And pretty smart really.
I liked this draft. It filled a lot of needs while not reaching or using assets. They got a lot of things they needed. A starting Safety, A B/U and future starting C, A cheap replacement for Kmet(For whenever), A replacement for JJ (Whenever), A solid LB, A KR so Burden and Raymond don’t have to do it all the time, A DL who doesn’t actually count as a spot on the roster, And a huge improvement in team defense speed. I don’t know what you expected. Poles and Johnson made it clear they don’t agree with all your perceptions about the DL, They like it. They helped it the best way they could. By bringing in a bunch of guys who can cover. Trading up is most always fools gold. FA is a better option than Draft reaches IMO.
I don’t think the “experts” would give the Bears draft an initial grade higher than C. Of course it will be a few more seasons before the real verdict comes in. Well see if the coaches can up their game now.
Well the so called expert for CBS gave them a D for picking Jones who I said I liked more than Hecht and was surprised when they took him and said he couldn’t pass block when everyone else I heard said he was good at it. So what “Experts” are those? It all depends on what you think is an expert I guess. We’ll find out in August. Everyone else they took was a good value.So I don’t really care. Plus there are 2 more times to add guys being June 1 and Final cut down day, Not to mention UDFA coming up.
Don’t have any perceptions about the DL, have the reality. It wasn’t very good and they didn’t do anything to address it. LB core either. A third TE and another WR was buffoonery. They’re hoping the DL will improve on its own. We will see.