LAKE FOREST, Ill. – The Bears on Saturday selected West Texas A&M offensive tackle J’Marcus Webb with the 218th overall pick in the seventh round of the draft.
The 6-8, 335-pounder transferred to West Texas A&M after appearing in 12 games as a true freshman at the University of Texas. Webb told Chicago reporters that he left Austin for personal reasons.

“I felt like I needed some more playing time,” said Webb, the cousin of former Miami Dolphins Pro Bowl offensive tackle Richmond Webb. “Now I’m ready to be a Bear and contribute.”
Bears offensive line coach Mike Tice traveled to Webb’s high school, North Mesquite High in Texas, to work him out March 24. Tice was impressed with Webb’s athleticism and strength. 
In one drill, Tice was holding a blocking shield. But Webb hit Tice so hard that he chipped the coach’s tooth. Tice said that Webb had the best punch of the five prospects he personally worked out.
West Texas A&M coach Don Carthel also had high praise for Webb.

“He dominated at this level,” Carthel told ChicagoBears.com. “He’s the best athlete I’ve ever coached as far as the offensive line. He has great feet. He has size 22 shoes. So he has the best feet and the biggest feet. He practiced every day, even when he was hurt. He always did everything we asked him to do.”

Webb is confident that he’ll be able to make a successful transition to the NFL after playing at the Division II level in college.

“I’m ready to play, no doubt about that,” Webb said. “I don’t feel like there’s anybody that can get in my way. I’m ready to play on this level, on any level.”

LAKE FOREST, Ill. – After selecting Florida safety Major Wright with their first pick in the third round Friday, the Bears continued to bolster their defense on the third and final day of the NFL Draft.

Chicago chose Northwestern defensive end Corey Wootton in the fourth round and Kansas State cornerback Joshua Moore in the fifth, infusing more youth into a veteran unit.
Wootton may be the most intriguing of the Bears’ five picks in the draft. The 6-6, 270-pounder had a breakout season as a junior in 2008, registering 42 tackles and 10 sacks. But he blew out his knee in the Alamo Bowl and didn’t play with the same explosiveness while recovering from the injury last season.

The Bears assign red and yellow warning flags to draft prospects with injury concerns. But Wootton, who had three of his four sacks last year in Northwestern’s final four games, didn’t receive either designation.

“Medically we passed him and we gave him a very good grade,” said general manager Jerry Angelo. “He’s healed. He just needs to get stronger, particularly in his quad area.

“He’s 15 months out [from surgery]. We think in these next couple months he is going to get a lot stronger. Hopefully he goes to [training] camp at 100 percent.”

The Bears were very impressed with how Wootton performed before he hurt his knee.

“We thought potentially he was going to come out after his junior year, so we did a lot of work on him during the season,” Angelo said. “Without cementing any grades because he didn’t come out, he did have the injury, we thought he was one of the better defensive linemen a couple of years ago.”

Bears defensive line coach Eric Washington helped recruit Wootton to Northwestern and served as his position coach with the Wildcats from 2005-07. Washington also coached defensive tackles Luis Castillo of the San Diego Chargers and Barry Cofield of the New York Giants at Northwestern.

“Eric put [Wootton] on a very high level with those players,” Angelo said. “He thought he had some special [qualities] and he certainly thinks he can rush the passer.

“We see him as a three-down player more prototypical on the left side. But again, he’s got to get himself back and going to where  he was. It’s not like his tape was poor; as the year went on he played better. He played good at the end of the year. But he still hasn’t reached the level that we saw in ’08.”

Like Wright, Moore is an athletic defensive back who skipped his final season of eligibility to enter the draft. The 5-11, 188-pounder started all 12 games each of the last two seasons at Kansas State, recording 76 tackles and three interceptions in 2008 and 64 tackles and two picks in 2009.

“Josh Moore has some very, very good traits and we like him quite a bit,” Angelo said.

The Bears feel that Moore, who left school a year early after playing for two head coaches and four different position coaches, will thrive with some continuity.

“He needs structure, and we feel we could offer him that structure,” Angelo said. “We feel that he is very passionate about football. You can take school out of the equation, put football in his daily diet seven days a week, and we like what we think he can become.”

Angelo said that the Bears were targeting three cornerbacks in the fifth round and opted to select Moore over Northwestern’s Sherrick McManis and Maryland’s Nolan Carroll. McManis was taken by the Houston Texans three spots after Moore and Carroll went to the Miami Dolphins with the next pick.

“We felt like [Moore] had the best ceiling in terms of having a chance to develop into a starter,” Angelo said. “The other two went right after him. We just didn’t feel they had the ceiling that Josh had.”
The Bears spent their final two picks on Central Michigan quarterback Dan LeFevour in the sixth round and West Texas A&M offensive tackle J’Marcus Webb in the seventh round.

LeFevour was a highly productive four-year starter in college, becoming the first player in NCAA history to pass for 12,000 yards and run for 2,500 yards in his career.

The Bears didn’t enter the draft intending to pick a quarterback. But when the 6-3, 230-pounder was still on the board, they couldn’t pass him up.

“The quarterback position obviously has value any year regardless of what your quarterback situation is,” Angelo said. “We’ve done a lot of work on Dan, given the fact that he’s played in our backyard.

“That was one that we talked about quite a bit, but at the end, we just felt that in the sixth round with his value and position, we went in that direction.”

The Bears concluded the draft by selecting Webb, a 6-8, 335-pounder who transferred to West Texas A&M after playing in 12 games as a freshman for the University of Texas.

“We wanted to come out with an offensive lineman,” Angelo said. “In the seventh, you can’t get too excited about any player, other than the fact that he does have a fit for you in terms of a need and/or what you’re trying to do from an offensive standpoint.

“We feel good about his traits. We’ll just wait and see when we get to camp and get the pads on, see the kind of quality of player he is. We know this: he’s got a lot of good physical traits. I think when you get a chance to see him in our minicamp [next weekend] you’ll see that as well.”

LAKE FOREST, Ill. – The Bears on Saturday selected Northwestern defensive end Corey Wootton with the 109th overall pick in the fourth round of the draft.

The 6-6, 270-pounder registered 21 tackles, six tackles-for-loss and four sacks last season while playing in 13 games with 11 starts. Wootton suffered a torn ACL, MCL and meniscus in his right knee in the Alamo Bowl December 2008 and didn’t show the same explosiveness as a senior.

“This is a value pick for us,” said Greg Gabriel, the Bears’ director of college scouting. “We had him going into the year as a very highly rated player. I don’t think he played as well. He’s coming off knee surgery he had in January of 2009. He wasn’t 100 percent when he played [last] year.

“This guy was thought of very highly by everybody, not only in our organization but around the league going into the season. He fell because of injury, but he’s a good player.”

Before sustaining the knee injury, Wootton was enjoying a breakout 2008 season. A unanimous All-Big Ten Conference first-team selection, he registered 42 tackles and 10 sacks. Wootton also blocked a kick for the third year in a row and recorded the fourth interception of his career.

“He’s got a lot of talent, he’s got great flexibility,” Gabriel said. “He ran about two weeks ago. His 40-time wasn’t real good, but everything else was pretty good. He ran in the 4.9s, but we don’t think he’s back to 100 percent yet. We think by training camp he will be.

“He probably rushed his rehab. I’m not speaking for him, but this is what we think. When our medical people looked at him, the knee is sound. He had a very good surgery. We know who did the surgery. He took good care of himself, but he came back and played like 7-8 months after surgery, and that’s hard to do after ACL surgery.

“So I think that probably hindered his rehab a little bit in that he was playing on it so soon, so he wasn’t quite as explosive. If you look at his tape from ’09 and then you look at the tape from ’08, there’s a difference in the athleticism. But part that of that is with ACL surgery it’s usually a year, 17 months, so it’s right around now he should be coming into full form.”

Wootton estimated that he is currently 90-95 percent healthy.

“My 40 time wasn’t that good, but my 10-yard split was pretty good, a 1.66, which was pretty similar to most of the guys who run in the 4.6s and 4.7s,” Wootton said. “My first 10 is there and I still have some room to improve in my explosiveness that I definitely will have back by training camp. I am excited for the opportunity and can’t wait for training camp.”

Getting back on the field for his senior season wasn’t easy for Wootton given the severity of his injury.

“It was very tough,” he said. “I just didn’t have the leg strength. I didn’t really get an offseason of strength training; just doing basic rehab stuff and go onto the field.

“It was definitely a tough year and it made me appreciate the game that much more. It made me a better film studier [and try to get] every advantage I could have off the field to perform at a high level because I didn’t have the same burst I had back in 2008.”

Having played just up the road in Evanston, Wootton is very familiar with Bears players and coaches.

“It’s a program I wanted to play for and I’ve been lucky enough to be drafted by them,” Wootton said. “I definitely think it’s a good fit for me and I can’t wait until minicamp.”

LAKE FOREST, Ill. – The Bears on Saturday selected Kansas State cornerback Joshua Moore with the 141st overall pick in the fifth round of the draft.

The 5-11, 188-pounder started all 12 games each of the past two seasons. He registered a team-leading 76 tackles with 12 pass breakups, three interceptions and five tackles-for-loss in 2008, and 64 tackles, 11 pass breakups, two interceptions and 4½ tackles-for-loss in 2009.
“When you watched him on tape, he played very well,” said Bears defensive backs coach Jon Hoke.
“He has excellent cover sense, good zone instincts and good play speed. You saw him make plays on the ball. He played against teams like UCLA and played very well. You saw him play well on big stages, so that’s what kind of intrigues you about the guy. When he was playing big teams, he played extremely well.”

Moore played in all 13 games as a true freshman in 2006, recording 35 tackles, five pass breakups and one interception. He then missed the entire 2007 campaign after being declared academically ineligible.

Moore could have returned to Kansas State for a final season, but chose to enter the draft primarily because he has a four-month-old child to support.

“He’s a junior coming out, so he’s a young guy,” Hoke said. “There will be a transition period for him. But he definitely has a skill-set that we’re excited to work with.”

Hoke said that Moore possesses better man skills than some of the Bears’ other young cornerbacks.

“It gives you a little bit different guy from the standpoint we know what his strengths are,” Hoke said. “Man coverage is a tough thing sometimes to each [in the] transition from college to the NFL. He has experience in that, and it shows up on tape.”

Moore needs to work on his upper-body strength—he bench-pressed 225 pounds only twice at the NFL Combine—but he doesn’t shy away from contact.

“He will go tackle,” Hoke said. “He needs to work on upper-body strength, which he knows, to become even more physical. But he’s a willing tackler. You didn’t see him shy away from contact, and that was a good thing. As long as they’re willing, then they’ve got a chance.”

Moore intends to improve his strength with the Bears.

“I know I have to work hard because that was a big question on me coming into this,” he said. “I know I just have to come in and get in the weight room and work harder—way harder than I did before.”

During a conference call with reporters, Moore thanked coach Lovie Smith, the McCaskey family and the rest of the Bears organization for drafting him.

“I feel I can come in and contribute anywhere the coaches need me to, whether it’s defense or special teams,” Moore said. “Also, I think I can come in and contribute right away.”

LAKE FOREST, Ill. – The Bears on Saturday selected Central Michigan quarterback Dan LeFevour with the 181st overall pick in the sixth round of the draft.

The 6-3, 230-pounder was a highly productive four-year starter in college, becoming the first player in NCAA history to pass for 12,000 yards and run for 2,500 yards in his career.

LeFevour led Central Michigan to bowl games in all four of his seasons. As a sophomore in 2007, he guided the Chippewas to the MAC championship and their first 10-win season in 27 years. The Chicago area native was named the conference’s offensive player of the year after passing for 3,652 yards and 27 touchdowns while rushing for 1,122 yards and 19 TDs on 188 carries.

LeFevour, who grew up in Downers Grove and attended Benet Academy in Lisle, was thrilled to be drafted by his hometown team.

“That means everything to me,” LeFevour said. “It’s a dream come true literally. I’ve been watching the Bears for quite a few years now, and if you go in my room, it’s decorated with all Chicago Bears stuff. 

“Obviously this is just the beginning though and I realize that. But it’s a great day for me and I’m really proud to be a part of that organization.”

Bears area scout Jeff Shiver compared LeFevour style-wise to former Bears quarterback Bobby Douglass.

“Dan LeFevour is a winner,” Shiver said. “He’s a big kid. He’s won a lot of games. He has passed for a lot of yards. A long time ago, I missed on a quarterback in the sixth round [Tom Brady]. I think he’s still with the Patriots.”

One knock against LeFevour isn’t that he doesn’t have a strong enough arm to play in the NFL.

“Just talking to people around the league and some coaches that I’ve been able to come in contact with, I think it is [strong enough],” LeFevour said. 

“As I improve my mechanics and get my lower body into throws a little bit more, I think that that will become more evident that I have a little bit more left in the tank than I’ve shown in college.”

LeFevour must also adjust to taking snaps directly from center in a pro-style offense after lining up in the shotgun in a spread system at Central Michigan.

“I think it’s definitely a difference,” LeFevour said. “I’m not going to say that it’s not because it is. But the more you work on it, the more it becomes more fluid and easier. I’ve been working on it ever since our bowl game back on January 7 and continuously doing that for a few months now.

“So I feel like I’ve been making a lot of progress, but I’ve got a few more strides to go before I feel extremely comfortable under center. It’s been great so far, but I’ve just got to keep working.

“I’ve got to prove that I can go under center and still be able to complete the ball and manage an offense, and that’s just fine. I’m up to the challenge and I’m looking forward to proving people wrong from that aspect.”

Some experts predicted that LeFevour would go much higher in the draft than the sixth round.

“Obviously this is a process that you can’t control, and as a quarterback you want as much control as possible,” he said. “It’s a little bit aggravating at times and it tries your patience a little bit. 

“But you’ve got to realize that it’s all going to work out and someone’s going to give me a chance to play at the next level and they’re going to give me a chance because they like the way I play. It might not have happened in the round that I liked, but it’s definitely to the right team and I’m very excited to be here.”