Why Ashton Jeanty is a perfect fit for the Bears

The Chicago Bears have already made big headlines this offseason, starting with landing the highly sought-after former Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson as their head coach. The Bears then made two trades to patch holes along their offensive line.

The Bears sent a sixth-round pick to the Rams to acquire Jonah Jackson on Tuesday. Jackson is a guard who spent four seasons in Detroit before signing a three-year deal for $51 million last offseason with the Rams.

On Wednesday, Chicago landed Joe Thuney in exchange for a 2026 fourth-round pick in a surprising trade with Kansas City. Thuney, a two-time first team All-Pro in Kansas City, has played in a lot of big games in his career dating back to his time with the Patriots.

Adding Jackson and Thuney signifies a major commitment to rebuilding the offensive line, a unit that was an integral part of Johnson's electrifying offenses in Detroit.

These moves have a significant impact for the Bears' strategy in the draft, in particular with their first-round pick at ninth overall. After filling needs at both guard spots, Chicago is now in a good position to take the best player available rather than needing to force a pick at a particular position to fill a need on draft night.

This makes former Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty a very intriguing option for the Bears. Ben Johnson's offenses in Detroit had so much success in large part due to their run game, and adding Jeanty would go a long way towards building that in Chicago.

The Heisman runner-up lit up college football last season rushing for 2,601 yards and 29 touchdowns to lead Boise State to a Mountain West conference title and a College Football Playoff appearance.

While the diminishing value of running backs in the modern NFL has been a big talking point in recent years, the impact players like Saquon Barkley, Derrick Henry and Jahmyr Gibbs had last season have alleviated those concerns.

Regardless, some running back prospects are the caliber of prospect that warrant a top 10 pick despite positional value. That certainly applies to Jeanty, as he showed time and time again at Boise State that with his combination of contact balance, explosiveness, long speed and vision he's able to consistently turn what would be a short gain for most running backs into a big gain.

There's still a lot of time for things to change between now and draft day, but expect Jeanty to Chicago to be a talking point in draft circles moving forward as the former Boise State running back is a perfect fit for the Bears.