The following is the third of a four-part weekly series that gives you a behind-the-scenes look at how the Bears prepare for the NFL draft. It's also a companion piece to the video feature "Inside the Draft pt. 3."

Watch video: Inside the Draft pt. 1 | Inside the Draft pt. 2 | Inside the Draft pt. 3

LAKE FOREST, Ill. – With the NFL draft less than two weeks away, the Bears are in the process of finalizing their “hot list." What began with over 1,200 names last summer soon will be whittled down to no more than 125.

“Now that we have all the information and all the input from all the people we feel are the experts on that player, we’ll digest that and then make a determination how they’re going to fit for us,” said general manager Jerry Angelo.

General manager Jerry Angelo conducts meetings with area scouts and coaches leading up to the draft.

The meetings that Angelo conducts with director of college scouting Greg Gabriel and the team’s area scouts in advance of the draft are a key part of the process.

“The goals are to really flush out what really is fact through the conviction that a scout has on a player,” Angelo said. “I want them to tell me exactly how they feel and the methodology they use to come to their conclusion. 

"That’s important for me personally in terms of evaluating the evaluators. They also need to understand how I come to my conclusions and how I think. That’s how good decisions are made; based on not only the facts but how we think in coming to conclusions.”

Angelo and Gabriel also meet extensively with coach Lovie Smith and his assistants.

“What we want to ascertain from the coaches is how [an individual prospect] fits in our scheme,” Angelo said. “Does he fit our player profile? So we’ll know that going in. We facilitate what our coaches want based on their positions.

“We have a pretty good idea. But there’s always going to be a little something that the player isn’t going to have and [we ask the coaches], ‘Are you OK with that?’ Are his strengths going to be able to override these few things that he may not  have in terms of some specific trait that he may look for.”

Regardless of position, the Bears are looking for one important attribute in every prospect, although it isn’t always easy to identify.

“We want playmakers,” Gabriel said. “But if it’s an offensive lineman, his playmaking ability doesn’t show up on the stat sheet. So you’re looking for the traits that he needs to consistently have good block after good block. A lot of that has to do with his football character. But there are obviously physical traits involved like his strength, agility, overall athletic ability and technique.

“There are a number of different things that you look at. But I think the important thing is that all the guys that we’re looking at in our opinion are playmakers.”

Gabriel said that the Bears pare their hot list down to a relatively small number of prospects because they “want to know a lot about a little and not a little about a lot.”

“Through my experience and the experience that Jerry’s had, when you try to get information on 600, 700 or 800 players, you’re cutting it thin because there’s no possible way you can do that,” Gabriel said.

Some prospects are eliminated from the hot list because of health concerns.

“You could really like a player and then they get through the medical process and the doctors flunked him on the physical, and there’s nothing we can do about that,” Gabriel said. “The process is an ongoing process and we’re changing the names literally up until a few days before the draft.”

The Bears grade draft prospects based on their citizenship, football character and performance on tape. Each player is then given a plus or a minus.

“A plus means he’s a fit for what we do and a minus means he can’t play in our system,” Gabriel said. “He could be a great player, he might be a first-round pick, but if he’s not a fit for what we do, those players aren’t on the hot list.”