Bears

When asked about their approach in the 2026 NFL Draft, Bears HC Ben Johnson said they wanted players who are “high-level competitors” and devoted to football. In the end, he feels like they filled that criterion. 

“We’re looking for high-level competitors,” Johnson said, via Dan Weiderer of The Athletic. “(We’re after) guys who, if you took football away, they’d really not know what to do with themselves… We found guys who fit our DNA and what we want to be about.”

Third-round WR Zavion Thomas said he’s obsessed with football and plays with a “different type of aggression.”

“That’s something I’ve had in me since I was a kid, since I fell in love with the game,” Thomas said. “I play with a different type of aggression, with a different mentality. At the end of the day, this is my life. I put everything in me into this game.”

Fourth-round CB Malik Muhammad said his approach to the game is to “dominate everybody.” 

“I just grew up like that,” Muhammad said. “(My family) instilled that into us. You dominate everybody. When it’s time to put your nuts on the floor, you go dominate. It’s second nature.”

Packers

The Packers traded up to the final pick of the sixth round to take Florida K Trey Smack. Green Bay GM Brian Gutekunst explained that they weren’t confident with their options in the seventh round based on how their board was falling. 

“Obviously, we liked him quite a bit and think he has a good chance to be a good kicker in the National Football League,” Gutekunst said, via Matt Schneidman of The Athletic. “But the way the board was falling, where we were sitting in the seventh round, I didn’t feel great about what we were going to have to select during those two picks and didn’t feel great that he would be there then, so we made the decision to do that.”

As for veteran K Brandon McManus, Gutekunst said their approach is to let the best player win the job. 

“We’ve always had a little bit of an advantage because we don’t have an owner and we’re not trying to prove something to an owner. We can just kind of let the best players win the job,” Gutekunst said. “That’s kind of how we’ll approach it, but we got some talented guys in that room and we’re going to have to figure that out. But I did think it was important to add competition to that, and certainly, we thought he was the best kicker in this draft.”

Smack marks the fourth specialist for Gutekunst to draft after taking P JK Scott in the fifth round in 2018, LS Hunter Bradley in the seventh round of 2018, and using a 2023 sixth-round pick on K Anders Carlson. Although none of those selections worked out, Gutekunst is committed to taking swings. 

“Well, you’ve got to keep trying, right?” Gutekunst said. “All players go through tough times in the National Football League. Kickers are front and center … it’s a little different that way. I certainly expect all these rookies to come in and have tough times. That’s part of the National Football League, but I do think what we did to move up to get him — obviously, we think very highly of him. We think he has a very good chance to succeed in this league, but we did with Anders, as well. That’s part of this, and we’ll see how it goes.”

Vikings

• The Vikings took six defensive players with their nine picks in the 2026 NFL Draft. ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler cites one AFC executive who questions how DC Brian Flores influenced their plans: “How much influence did Brian Flores have [on the selections]?” one AFC exec asked. “It felt like a lot. Felt like a coach-heavy draft.”
• Fowler writes that first-round DT Caleb Banks seemed “risky” to some around the league due to his multiple foot surgeries, while multiple scouts considered third-round S Jakobe Thomas to be more of a mid-to-late Day 3 pick.