Bears add secondary help, draft Oregon safety Dillon Thieneman with No. 25 pick in NFL draft

LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) - There were a number of directions the Chicago Bears could have gone in the first round of the NFL draft. They opted to give their secondary a boost.

Chicago took a safety in the first round for the first time in 36 years when they selected Oregon's Dillon Thieneman with the No. 25 pick on Thursday night.

"He's a violent football player," general manager Ryan Poles said. "He strikes. There's a knock-back element to his tackling."

The Bears hadn't drafted a safety in the first round since 1990, when they took Marc Carrier with the No. 6 pick out of USC. Thieneman is the first defensive player taken in the first round by Chicago since linebacker Roquan Smith in 2018. He joins a team trying to build on a breakthrough year, after winning the NFC North in coach Ben Johnson's first season.

Chicago also has two second-rounders, a third-rounder, a fourth-rounder and two seventh-rounders.

The Bears lost their top four safeties, including three-time All-Pro Kevin Byard and Jaquan Brisker. They signed Coby Bryant, who helped Seattle win its second Super Bowl, to a three-year, $40 million contract, but still had an opening at that position.

Thieneman grew up near Indianapolis in Westfield, Indiana, and starred at Purdue for two years before transferring to Oregon last season. He earned first-team All-Big Ten honors and helped the Ducks go 13-2 while advancing to the College Football Playoff semifinals. He finished with 95 tackles and two interceptions, including the clinching pick in a double-overtime win at Penn State in late September.

The 6-foot, 201-pound Thieneman is known for his speed, versatility and ability to recognize what the other team is trying to do. He ran a 4.35-second 40-yard dash at the combine and can play both safety spots as well as nickelback.

"I feel like speed is very interesting because there's normal speed and then there's gameplan speed," Thieneman said. "So the more you can process and recognize, the faster you can play in-game closer to your speed."

Thieneman kept two notebooks - one for scouting the opponent and the other containing everything he needed to know.

"So I'd write everything in one notebook, and then I'd kind of compile it and what I needed to study and what I needed to know in another so I could study that before the game," he said.

Poles said Thieneman's character is "off the charts."

"We have so many good sources in terms of guys he's played with - that's all the way from Westfield High School all the way to Oregon," he said. "The feedback we got was incredible. ... He's a very similar type person, player, combination to what (tight end) Colston (Loveland) was. The work ethic, that passion for ball was off the charts. We grade on a scale of one to nine. There's no fives and there's no twos. There's no fence grades. There's a lot of sevens and eights when you look across this guy's character. Really happy with the type of person we're bringing in."

The Bears went 11-6 and captured the division championship for the first time since 2018 last season. Quarterback Caleb Williams, the No. 1 pick in 2024, made big strides in his first year in Johnson's offense. Chicago advanced in the playoffs for the first time since the 2010 season, beating the rival Green Bay Packers in a wild-card game before losing an overtime thriller to the Los Angeles Rams in the divisional round.

The Bears still have needs at left tackle and in the pass rush. They could be addressed the next two days.

"Lotta good options," Poles said. "I'll say this, this was probably the most aggressive they were in terms of the guys that we really like. They have to play our style. They've gotta have the right makeup. In terms of our scheme fits, all of that had to be there. If it wasn't there, you're off the board."