Bears Take Dillon Thieneman in First Round of 2026 NFL Draft

The Chicago Bears used their first-round pick in the 2026 NFL Draft on safety Dillon Thieneman, a selection that’s already drawing debate among the team’s closest observers.

The pick landed with a thud for at least two analysts who cover the club daily. Patrick Finley and Jason Lieser, hosts of the Chicago Sun-Times “Halas Intrigue” podcast, said on their April 24 episode that they would have gone in a different direction with the selection.

That’s not a minor disagreement.

Finley and Lieser have covered the Bears closely enough to know what general manager Ryan Poles has said he wants to build at Haverford. A first-round safety pick signals a specific organizational priority, and both analysts questioned whether that priority was the right one at this stage of the rebuild under head coach Ben Johnson.

The Bears entered this draft with recognizable gaps. The offensive line still needs reinforcement after a difficult 2025 season for quarterback Caleb Williams, who took far too many hits behind a unit that couldn’t hold up against premier pass rushes. The defensive backfield has needed an upgrade, but the question the Bears’ draft room apparently answered Thursday was which need to address first, and at what cost.

Thieneman, who played college football at Purdue, projects as a rangy, instinctive safety with good ball-hawking skills. Scouts who tracked him through his college career noted his ability to read routes quickly, which is the kind of trait that fits what defensive coordinators at the NFL level want in a single-high safety. Whether that translates to the speed and precision the Bears will need from the position against AFC North and NFC opponents is the question the next few preseason months will start to answer.

Draft analysts across the league had Thieneman rated as a viable first-round talent, though projections varied enough that some boards had him going later. The Bears clearly felt comfortable taking him when they did.

Still, the pick left Finley and Lieser unconvinced.

Their skepticism matters for context. The “Halas Intrigue” podcast, distributed through WBEZ and available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, has tracked this front office through multiple transitions, and Finley and Lieser don’t reach for criticism when they don’t think it’s warranted. When they say they’d have gone another way, that’s rooted in months of watching Poles build this roster piece by piece since taking the job.

The Bears hold additional picks in later rounds. Whether Poles uses those selections to address the offensive line or add another skill position player around Williams will tell a lot about how the organization sees its timeline to contention.

Williams, the No. 1 overall pick in 2024, completed his second NFL season with flashes of what made him the consensus top prospect coming out of USC, but he also showed the wear of playing behind a porous line. The franchise’s ability to protect him going into his third year isn’t a luxury consideration. It’s the kind of structural question that a first-round safety pick doesn’t answer.

Chicago fans who’ve watched this team miss the playoffs for multiple consecutive seasons don’t have patience for theoretical upside. They want to know who’s keeping Williams upright and who’s getting him the ball in space. Thieneman can’t do either of those things.

What he can do is help the Bears slow down opposing passing games, and Johnson, who came to Chicago after coordinating one of the league’s sharper offenses in Detroit, knows precisely how critical secondary play is when teams try to scheme against a disciplined defense. That’s the argument in favor of the pick.

The NFL Draft runs through Saturday, giving Poles the chance to use his remaining selections to answer the lingering questions on offense. Scouts and front offices across the league have studied the same board Chicago has been looking at all spring, and the Bears’ next several picks will clarify whether Thieneman was an addition to a coherent plan or a detour from one. The full picture of this draft class won’t be clear until those picks are in.