Phil Emery Making a List, Checking It Twice

Phil Emery has a reputation for being a hard-working general manager who loves breaking down statistics and tape. He likes things organized and appears to be a bit type-A. Check out how he is planning to run the draft.

"Normally what we do is when we set up a plan for the draft, we will do it in the order of players we would trade up for at that pick; that we feel we'll still have a possibility, might be slim that they may still be there," Emery said after Tuesday's press conference. "But they're first. Those are players that we would not pass up. Then we would have players in and around that pick that we feel will be available through our research that we know that with that pick we feel have the best chance of helping contribute on our team and helping us towards our goals."

So, there is a continuum of players, including reaches and safe bets. Emery wants to prioritize players, which makes sense. Any more to say, Phil? 

"In the back end of the list would be players that if the players in front of them aren't available, those are the players that we would be looking for on a trade back. Hopefully you've got two or three or four of those players, depending on how far back you want to go in terms of designing your plan. Those players would be at the back end. So that whole grouping, say at 20, really you may end up having five, six players that you really feel comfortable (with). You have two or three out front that have a chance to come to you. Then you would include at least another four or five on the back end of that that you'd have ranked ordered in case you trade back."

Wow. This isn't just making a list and checking it twice. It's prioritizing players and coming up with strategy and planning for each and every situation that could happen on April 25. How awesome is that? This isn't a man who is going to mess up a trade and sully the Bears' reputation with the league. (Ahem, Jerry Angelo

The Bears may not make the perfect pick on draft night, but you can count on one thing. They will be well-prepared. 

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