Bears Knowingly Drafted a Player With a Herniated Disc, Defend the Decision

Yesterday was a busy day at Halas Hall, but not on the field.

Chicago Bears first-round bust pick Chris Williams told reporters that he already had a tweaked back before the NFL draft.

''I had a herniated disc before I got here,'' Williams said. ''We knew that. Everyone knew that. It just was a thing where most people it doesn't affect. It wasn't affecting me, so if nothing is broke, you don't fix it. Then something happened in practice that second day, the disc started moving and that caused some problems.''

So he withheld information to get drafted higher? The nerve of this guy! Oh wait, Bears GM Jerry Angelo said that he knew about it when he drafted Williams in the first round.

''There is a lot of history of players that had this condition that he had at the combine that have played with it,'' Angelo said. ''We were basing it off of the play time. We were basing it off of no symptoms for a period of three or more years. We were comfortable with that. I did use the term wear and tear. There were concerns. But you know what, you could say that for a lot of players at a lot of positions.''

Yeah, you're right, Jerry. I'm guessing most general managers would ignore herniated discs when drafting potential franchise players. We all know those intense interrogation sessions during the combine are purely for entertainment purposes. The wonderlic test was specifically designed to mock Vince Young, for example.

It's impossible to justify Angelo's side here. The story reported that he was very "emotional" in stating that he was assured by Doctors that Williams' back only "raised yellow flags, not red ones." This is ludicrous. You don't draft a guy in the first round if there is anything but a proverbial green flag. I might understand the pick if Orlando Pace, Jr. fell to the Bears at 13 overall, but this is a guy that had question marks anyway (toughness, short arms). The bottom line is that it was a gamble ... of course, Angelo knows that, too:

''Nobody was trying to pull the wool over anybody's eyes,'' Angelo said. ''Nobody is covering their ass, nobody is twisting the truth or embellishing it. If we screwed up, I would tell you, 'We screwed up. Hey, we said this was 50-50 and we just rolled the dice.' I would tell you that.''

That's good. I'd hate for a general manager of the team in the second largest NFL market to be sure of his first round draft pick. It's not like first-rounders matter much anyway.

Sarcasm aside, this is despicable. Have you ever, in any sport, heard a GM openly say his first round draft pick was "50-50?" I'd love to hear an example.

I'll say it for Angelo: he screwed up.

What a colossal embarrassment.