NFC North, Day 3: Draft complete, which team earned an edge into 2026?
It's a logjam in the black and blue division. Bob McGinn analyzes all Day 3 selections made by the Bears, Packers, Lions and Vikings.
By Bob McGinn
Are Kyler Murray or J.J. McCarthy capable of giving the Vikings championship-level quarterbacking?
How long will it be until the Packers’ Micah Parsons returns from ACL surgery, and when he does wear the No. 1 jersey will he be the same player in 2026 that he was in 2025?
Have the Bears done enough to overcome the abrupt retirement of center Drew Dalman, and is their turnover-driven defense headed for an almost inevitable downturn?
Did the Lions find a suitable replacement for Taylor Decker, their retired mainstay at tackle?
Those were the burning questions in the NFC North Division entering the NFL draft, and the only answer appears to have been found in Detroit with the first-round selection of tackle Blake Miller. I’m less confident about Logan Jones coming out of the second round and providing immediate plug-and-play for the Bears at center.
This might well turn out to become a historically weak draft and the powerful NFC North, with all four teams coming off winning seasons, was in no position to make more than marginal improvement after drafting in the bottom half of every round. Due in large part to Miller, the Lions’ draft on paper would earn the slightest of nods as the best in the division, but the separation from the other drafts is relatable to the two-game gap between the first- and last-place teams a season ago.
Drafting 17th-18th-20th-25th or thereabouts for all three days created considerable impatience. On Saturday, all five of the trades involving North clubs saw them give up draft-choice compensation to secure the player of their desire higher up in the round. A day earlier, the Lions moved up for edge rusher Derrick Moore and the Packers moved up for defensive tackle Chris McClellan. For the first time in nine years Green Bay didn’t have a pick in the first round.
North teams entered the draft on Thursday with 33 selections and found so little to their liking that they ended up with 29 players. Packers general managers Ted Thompson (2005-’17) and Brian Gutekunst, who took over for his mentor in 2018, hoarded choices like no one else by making wise use of the compensatory system and then frequently trading back. In the past 21 years the Packers drafted 201 players, an average of 9.57. Green Bay’s six selections this weekend, two fewer than what they controlled when the draft began, was its lowest total since 2004 when Mike Sherman, in his final draft as both coach and GM, also finished with six. Half of that draft (Ahmad Carroll, Donnell Washington, B.J. Sander) were Round 1-3 busts.
Besides the unspoken but obvious frustration over this year’s talent pool, the NFC North formed a united front when it came to priorities. Of the 29 picks, 18 were on defense, just 10 on offense and one on special teams. The Packers added merely one player on offense, one more than the Lions.
CHICAGO BEARS (11-6, 1-1)
4/124. MALIK MUHAMMAD, CB, Texas (6-0, 188, 4.45)
5/166. KEYSHAUN ELLIOTT, LB, Arizona State (6-1 ½, 232, 4.58)
6/213. JORDAN VAN DEN BERG, DT, Georgia Tech (6-3, 310, 4.94)
After adroitly filling needs at safety and center in the first two rounds, the Bears lost momentum with the uninspired selections of tight end Sam Roush and wide receiver-returner Zavion Thomas in the third round. Then in the fourth they traded away 22 slots in an exchange of fifth-round picks with Carolina to move up five berths in the fourth round in order to choose Muhammad. He was the 15th cornerback drafted.
