LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Senior writer Larry Mayer sits down with general manager Jerry Angelo to discuss the most pressing issues involving the Bears every Wednesday exclusively on ChicagoBears.com.

This feature will provide you with inside information directly from Jerry that you can’t get anywhere else. Jerry will candidly discuss relevant issues affecting the Bears that fans are most interested in.

LM: How much time do you spend watching tape of college players this time of year?

Bears general manager Jerry Angelo is already preparing for the 2010 NFL Draft.

JA: It’s an ongoing process. There’s not a season to do it; it’s done in all seasons. We create the base for a player coming into the draft by watching his junior year, and then seeing the development that he made during his senior year. Some players get hurt when they’re seniors, so you have to rely on their junior-year tape. In some cases there’s been a coaching change, meaning a scheme change. So you have to recognize how the player performed in one scheme and how he’s now doing in another. It has a lot of different purposes, but when you’re doing a two-year study on a player, it takes time. That’s why I say it’s a year-round job.

LM: How many individual players do you scout?

JA: I monitor as many as I can. I don’t want to watch just enough to be dangerous, I want to watch enough to have a valid opinion. So whatever time permits during my day, I’ll do as much as I can. Some days I’m able to do more than others depending on what’s going on. I probably spend a few hours a day watching tape, and I try to continue that habit throughout the year because, like I said, it’s an ongoing process. It’s almost like going into a library and somebody says that you can’t leave until you’ve read all of these books. It’s almost an impossible task, but you do as much as you can with the time you have.

LM: Do you focus on certain teams or regions?

JA: I focus on the Midwest, which encompasses the Big Ten and the Mid-American [Conferences]. I’ll try to do the Big 12 North and also teams like Cincinnati and Kentucky. Then I’ll try to do the west coast—all the Pac 10 and the WAC. That’s my base for the year. And then once we determine our needs at the end of the year, I watch the positions of need in the other areas.

LM: What are you looking for when you’re watching tape?

JA: I feel like you can determine five criteria about a player without ever having to talk to a coach or making a school visit. You can determine his play speed, functional strength, athleticism, competitive nature and production. Those five criteria are very important in a player’s evaluation, and you can get that off of tape. If you watch enough tape, you’re able to ascertain a good working knowledge in those five areas, and those five areas are very crucial to a player’s success at this level.

LM: How many college games do you typically attend during the NFL season?

JA: I don’t go to as many as I’d like. I’m probably going to a little bit more than usual this year, but not a lot. You can’t be everywhere. It’s a matter of allocating your time. If you go to a game, that’s usually a two-day proposition. I always say to myself: “Am I getting more out of the game than I am staying here and watching tape for a day and a half?”

LM: What aspect of the scouting process do you like the most?

JA: Finding down-the-line players. We selected four players [in Henry Melton, Al Afalava, Lance Louis and Derek Kinder] in this year’s draft that didn’t go to the NFL Combine (which tied for the most of any NFL team). The Combine has more than 300 players in attendance, and that’s more than the number of players drafted, so when you find players who make your team but didn’t go to the Combine, that is really finding the needle in the haystack. That’s part of the fun of it; the challenge in finding those types of players. Everybody recognizes the obvious players, but the art of this is in trying to find those second-tier players who work out for you. All of our scouts are trying to do the same thing, and I feel we do a pretty decent job of it.

LM: When the area scouts visit a player on his campus, what are they doing that’s different from what you do?

JA: They’re focusing on the makeup of the player in terms of his personality, the type of citizen he is and how important football is to him. We call that his football character; his work ethic, his ability to ascertain a game plan and carry it through on Saturday. That means a lot of networking with a lot of people on campus. Almost anyone can recognize and draft talent; the challenge of what we do is to draft talent with character.