The Next Gen Mahomes/Kelce Combo Platter
Why the Chicago Bears should draft Brock Bowers.
Come NBA Draft season, I very much dig zipping over to NBADraft.net and eyeballing whose game they feel a potential draftee’s most resembles.
You know, comps.
The only thing more fun than basking in their pre-draft analysis is zipping over to the site eight months later and calculating their hit rate. Here’s how 2023’s top ten looked:
Victor Wembanyama = Ralph Sampson
Brandon Miller = Paul George
Scoot Henderson = Ja Morant/Derrick Rose
Amen Thompson = Latrell Sprewell
Ausar Thompson = Trevor Ariza
Anthony Black = Josh Giddey/Steve Smith
Bilal Coulibaly = OG Anunoby
Jarace Walker = Tim Thomas
Taylor Hendricks = Pascal Siakim
Cason Wallace = Immanuel Quickley/Marcus Smart
Mind you, this is a ceiling thing — we can’t expect Miller to look like PG-13 this season…although on some nights, he kinda does.
For their performance in 2023, I’ll bestow upon the NBADraft.net braintrust a grade of D. They undersold Wemby and the Thompson twins, while overhyping Henderson, Black, Hendricks, and Wallace. Credit where credit is due, it feels like they nailed it on Miller, Coulibaly, and Walker, which means they hit on 30%.
Yikes. In every non-Montessori school in America, that would earn them an F — but I’ll give them points for effort, thus the passing grade.
Point is, regardless of the sport, comps are hard. Really hard. But that doesn’t stop us from trying.
Heading into the 2024 NFL Draft, many writers, scouts, and team executives have comped USC signal caller Caleb Williams with Kansas City Chiefs stud Patrick Mahomes, among them Chicago Bears GM Ryan Poles, who noted, “There’s pieces that are similar. Obviously, the one stands out to everyone is just different arm angles. That’s a unique trait, not a lot of guys can do that.”
Williams’ tape is, at times, kinda-sorta Mahomes-ian, but Mahomes — even at age 28 — is already in the GOAT conversation, so citing the former Trojan in the same breath as a legit generational talent is, at best, ballsy, and, at worst, heresy.
For the sake of this discussion, though, let’s go ahead and agree with title of the above highlight package. Let’s go ahead and say that Caleb is, indeed, Mahomes 2.0.
As I write this, NFL Mock Draft Database gives the Bears a 96% chance of nabbing Williams with the first pick, with a 45% chance they’ll use their second first-round pick (9) on Washington’s Rome Odunze.
Few, if any of the mock drafts floating around the interwebs have the Bears taking a swing at tight end Brock Bowers. Admittedly, the Database gives the Los Angeles Chargers a 31% chance of grabbing Bowers at 5, so there’s a fair chance he won’t be available for Chicago at the 9 spot. But nobody has the Bears trading up to pick the Georgia product. Nobody has them lusting after the draft’s consensus TE1.
And I can’t figure out why.
A whole lot of analysts who are a whole lot smarter than me comp Bowers with George Kittle, one of them being NFL.com’s Daniel Jeremiah, who wrote:
There are striking similarities in their body movements, explosiveness and competitiveness. Kittle is a more consistent blocker in the run game, but Bowers has a little more juice after the catch. Both guys really separate out of breaks and refuse to be tackled by the first defender after the catch. There's a will to fight for every single yard -- and it elevates to an even greater level when a first down or touchdown is within reach. Kittle has been a top-two/three player at his position for the bulk of his career. Bowers has that type of upside.
See? A whole lot smarter than me.
You won’t find nearly as many experts who comp Bowers with Travis Kelce…and that’s fair, because Kelce is two or three productive seasons away from doing some GOAT-ing of his own. It could be argued that Kelce is incomparable.
But what would Kelce be without Mahomes? What if his quarterbacks were Jimmy Garopollo and/or Brock Purdy? He might well be…George Kittle, a borderline Hall of Famer who’d walk away from the game with some Pro Bowl nods and a team record or two. Great, but not GREAT.
With Mahomes, however, Kelce is an undeniable GOAT candidate.
So by the transitive property, if Williams is Mahomes redux while Bowers is Kittle-plus, when you put them together, shouldn’t you be looking at a potentially dynastic tandem? Peanut butter and chocolate, right?
This begs the question, who are the comps for the aforementioned Big Three receivers? ESPN’s Matt Miller has Harrison equalling A.J. Green, Nabers matching Stefon Diggs, and Ozunde paralleling Ja’Marr Chase.
Mahomes won a Super Bowl with Tyreek Hill, while Green, Diggs, and Chase have never lifted a Lombardi. Granted, neither Green, Diggs, nor Chase have ever caught balls from either Mahomes or a Mahomes-like passer, but Josh Allen and Joe Burrow ain’t no slouches, and Green was so darn talented that he made Andy Dalton a three-time Pro Bowler.
The eye test, however, tells us that Hill is a scarier receiver than Green, Diggs, or Chase, so, that being the case, some mental gymnastics tell us that a Williams/Bowers combo platter has a better chance at earning a ring (or two) than Williams/Harrison, Williams/Nabers, or Williams/Ozunde.
As noted, there’s a fair chance the former Bulldog will be off the board when Chicago picks at 9 — NFL.com’s Eric Edholm, for instance, has Bowers going to the Chargers at 5. But if Brock is available to Chicago, whoever’s handling the Bears’ draft card should grab the thickest Sharpie in the Campus Martius Park and Hart Plaza, write the name BROCK BOWERS (all caps) on said card, sprint to the metaphorical podium, and tape said card onto Roger Goodell’s forehead.