Only minutes after the first round of the 2013 NFL draft came to a conclusion did Bears GM Phil Emery come clean and admit that his often-befuddled predecessor Jerry Angelo was still calling the shots in the war room, which helps explain why the team choose a mid-level lineman with their first choice.
“Jerry’s got nothing going on these days so I kind of felt bad for the guy,” said Emery. “He called me up the other day and asked if he could hang out on draft day for old time’s sake. I was too much of a softy to turn him down.”
Angelo has a long, rich tradition of botching the Bears’ draft and earning little respect around the league in the process, so Emery’s decision to involve Angelo in the draft process is rather shocking, but not as shocking as the decision to burn the team’s 20th overall pick on Kyle Long, by most accounts a mid-tier offensive lineman many insiders predicted would get picked in the third round.
“Jerry really wanted to pick Kyle,” said Emery. “I didn’t put up much of a fight, because Jerry’s a veteran at this sort of thing, but in retrospect, maybe I should have been more forceful.”
Added Emery: “It makes me wonder if I should have agreed to let Lovie Smith put on a clinic about proper use of timeouts in the NFL for Marc Trestman.”
