ChicagoBears.com draft coverage | 2009 ChicagoBears.com Draft Challenge

LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Most experts are predicting that the Bears will select a wide receiver with the 49th pick in the second round of the NFL Draft Saturday. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have other options.

“We do like other players at other positions,” general manager Jerry Angelo told reporters during a pre-draft gathering Tuesday at Halas Hall. “The receiver position is certainly a position that we’re looking at strongly for the obvious reasons. But I don’t want to rule out other players at other positions that we feel will be better players that could help our football team as well.”

Texas Tech's Michael Crabtree will be long gone by the time the Bears pick, but there are several other wide receivers that could interest them at No. 49.

In other words, the Bears don’t intend to reach for a wide receiver to fill a need if there’s a player at another position with a much higher grade on the board at No. 49.

“We’re not going to manufacture a receiver,” Angelo said. “We’re not going to do that. If there’s another player that we feel may not address a position as needed as a receiver, we’re still not going to rule that player out. Potentially, there could be a player that we really like.

"I don't want to draft a receiver ... and then find out he's just a vanilla cone. That's not my goal. We want to come out with something that has some sprinkles on it or has a little twist to it; bring a little playmaking ability to the position, and that's what we're fixed on. If we don't feel we're going to get a little twist to this guy, then we don't want to take him. We want a guy who has a little juice to him."

A lot, of course, depends on exactly when a run on wide receivers begins. Texas Tech’s Michael Crabtree, Missouri’s Jeremy Maclin and Maryland’s Darrius Heyward-Bey are all expected to be long gone before the Bears pick. But second-tier prospects such as North Carolina’s Hakeem Nicks, Florida’s Percy Harvin and Rutgers’ Kenny Britt could slip into the second round.

“Do those players go at the end of the first round or the start of the second round?” Angelo said. “If it’s at the start of the second round, that might push a guy down that we like. But we won’t know that obviously until the weekend.”

Other possibilities at No. 49 could include a defensive lineman, safety, offensive tackle or cornerback.

“We’re never going to rule out defensive linemen,” Angelo said. “That’s always kind of been our mantra since I’ve been here, and we’ll always continue to look at defensive linemen. There are other positions that we feel potentially you would classify them as a need as well.

“So I don’t want to get focused on one position and then miss these other players. We’ve done a pretty good job I feel over our tenure of going into the draft open-minded, [but] understanding that needs are important and they have to be filled—if not in free agency, it has to come through the draft.

“That’s why you’ll see a lot of the prognosticators after the draft tell us that we picked players too high or whatever. But in all cases, when you go into a draft and you have to have players [at positions] of need, you have to take them where you can get them and in all likelihood it’s going to be in those first three picks.”

When the Bears still had the 18th overall pick before sending it to the Broncos in the Jay Cutler trade, Angelo and director of college scouting Greg Gabriel had talked about taking a receiver in that spot.

“The receiver group this year is outstanding,” Angelo said. “All the juniors came out, and that was a position I know Greg and I talked about quite a bit.

“I felt like the quality of that position was so good that maybe you could really get a [premier] receiver at 18. Those were some of the preliminary talks that we had going on. [There were] some other positions that we had talked about too, but primarily that was the one.”

Asked about what type of receiver would most interest the Bears in the draft, Angelo said: “You don’t want all of the same [on your roster]. That’s one thing I can say emphatically. You want to have something that meshes in how they complement one another.

“Naturally, you are always going to look for speed. Speed speaks for itself. If you don’t get speed, then obviously size comes into the equation because of the blocking. We will want to run the football. We play two seasons here in Chicago with the weather, so that’s going to be more important to us. The bigger receiver does have a role here.”