Why Kyle Monangai was a 7th-round draft pick for Chicago Bears

Billy Heyen

Why Kyle Monangai was a 7th-round draft pick for Chicago Bears image

Kyle Monangai isn't the first or last running back to emerge out of the late rounds and look like a steal.

But it certainly has worked out well for the Chicago Bears.

They landed Monangai in the seventh round out of Rutgers.

And by the midpoint of this season, he's sharing the backfield with D'Andre Swift in a very effective way.

Which begs the question, as usual: Why'd he stick around so long?

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Why did Kyle Monangai last until the 7th round?

Monangai had a couple things working against him.

The first was that at the NFL Combine, he only ran a 4.6-second 40-yard ash.

The second was the relative positional value of RBs, who have been disregarded in recent years as a replaceable position.

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In part, that's because teams wait on guys like Monangai, and then they prove they belong, so why take one earlier?

“I don’t concern myself with who went before me and all those things — the draft is over with,” Monangai said after the draft. “[It’s] definitely something I’ll take with me as some fuel, a chip on my shoulder. But that’s kind of been my whole career and my path to getting here. The things that allowed me to excel in college, I’ve got to figure that out at this level first, then use those things to my advantage."

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