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Velus Jones Jr. had faced the question during the pre-draft process, so the wide receiver and return specialist from Tennessee was prepared with an answer.
“Age is nothing but a number,” he said during a Zoom call with reporters after the Chicago Bears drafted him in the third round Friday night.
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Jones joins the Bears with six years of college experience — four at USC and two at Tennessee. He took a redshirt year as a freshman at USC in 2016. And he took advantage when the NCAA granted players an extra year of eligibility because the 2020 season was disrupted by COVID-19.
As a sixth-year senior for the Volunteers last season, he totaled a career-high 807 receiving yards, 1,722 all-purpose yards and eight touchdowns (seven receiving, one kickoff return).
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Jones will turn 25 next week, making him the oldest player in the 11-man Bears draft class by a year. For comparison, wide receiver Allen Robinson was 25 in his first season with the Bears — and he already had four years in the NFL at that point.
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But Jones pointed to his physical condition as more important than his age.
“The biggest injury I ever had was a high ankle sprain,” he said. “Never tore anything, broke anything, so I have the body of, like, a 21-year-old. … A lot of people try to make it a big issue, but at the end of the day, I can play ball, I’m physical, I can run, I can make plays.”
Jones is far from the only player drafted this week who had a long journey to reach the Bears.
Offensive linemen Zachary Thomas and Doug Kramer will be 24 before training camp and also were in college for six years. Seven other Bears draftees were in college for five years, including Miami (Ohio) edge rusher Dominique Robinson, who will be 24 this summer, and safety Jaquan Brisker, 23, who spent two years in community college before playing three seasons at Penn State.
The only player in the class who didn’t have an extended college career? Washington cornerback Kyler Gordon, who played four seasons and was the Bears’ first pick at No. 39 in the second round.
“(Drafting older players) was not intentional,” Bears general manager Ryan Poles said. “Last year after the draft, for (the undrafted free agent) process, there was like nobody. It really was kind of a deal with COVID because a lot of these players took extra years. … That’s just an effect of COVID on the draft that will linger, probably, for another year.”
The COVID year didn’t affect only the Bears class. According to Defector, this year’s draft class overall was about a full year older on average than the previous five classes.
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In a look at some of the oldest players in this year’s draft, Sports Illustrated reported there were at least 17 seventh-year seniors in FBS locker rooms in 2021. One of them was Eastern Washington offensive lineman Tristen Taylor, 25, who started college by redshirting in 2015, sat out most of 2018 with a knee injury and signed as an undrafted free agent with the Bears on Saturday night.
NFL front offices and coaches obviously hope the draft class isn’t just older but also deeper in talent because of the players who put off entering the league for a year.
NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah said before the draft that he usually struggles to find the final 40 to 50 players worthy of evaluation on a 400-player list but had no trouble this year.
NBC Sports’ Peter King reported the Baltimore Ravens stockpiled middle-round picks — including six in the fourth round — because of their belief in the depth of the class. And Bears scouts echoed that sentiment as the team made eight Day 3 picks, hoping the high quantity will result in a few hits.
“I didn’t think (the draft class) was that exciting at the top,” scout Jeff Shiver said after the Bears drafted Kramer on Saturday. “There’s not the movie star up there, but it just kind of blended through all the way down. Like there will be guys in the seventh round where somebody’s going to get a good steal.
“Especially with all of our picks, and we have a bunch of open roster spots. … We ought to be able to track some good free agents too.”
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For scouts such as the Bears’ Breck Ackley, who had years of film on Baylor running back Trestan Ebner, the extra year allowed them more research to confirm their evaluations.
For the players, it gave them an extra year to prepare for the NFL transition.
That was the case with Robinson, who had an extra year to develop after switching from wide receiver to edge rusher in 2020. And it was the case with Jones, according to Bears scout Sam Summerville, who said he saw refinement in Jones’ game, including route running, from the start of the 2021 season to the end. He also noted Jones’ maturity.
Jones was conscious of using the year to better himself.
“Having that extra year to develop on everything, from being bigger, stronger, faster, football IQ, increasing on that, especially breaking down defenses,” Jones said. “God gave me another chance to do what I love, just improving myself as a player and also as a person.”
As for Jones being the oldest player in the Bears class, Summerville said age can get overblown sometimes, noting all of the players come in with the same NFL experience.
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Poles also brushed off an age question.
“Sure, I wish he was 19 years old, but you can’t have everything,” Poles said. “It’s just part of who he is, and we’ll just roll with it. He’s been durable, so I feel good about it.”