I'm surprised this hasn't been posted. Some great insight into why the bears picked the players they did. It's very clear that both the TE and WR were players that due to Johnson's interest they were targeting:
On Rousch: Yes, the Bears already have Loveland and Kmet. But Johnson isn’t shy about his love for the tight end position, and this selection isn’t going to push Loveland or Kmet out. This is about adding a third, bigger tight end to the room, Koziol said.
“The nice thing with Sam is that he’s got the versatility to play both in-line and off the ball,” Koziol said. “So now all of a sudden, you’ve got three versatile tight ends who can each do a little bit of everything. We always talk about adding competition to the room, but it really adds a lot of versatility into the offense. Now there’s different packages that you could put in to combine the skill sets of all three.”
(I Personally can't wait to see the impact that having 3 TE's with this type of versatility will have on the Red Zone Offense.")
On Thomas: " People in the Bears front office talk about the nervous energy that Johnson exudes when he likes a player. When the coach starts rocking back and forth a little as he’s watching the film, that’s a good thing.
“This guy is going to be a weapon,” Bears assistant director of college scouting Francis St. Paul said. “This is one of the guys that Ben, when he saw the tape, started doing his little rocking, and you could tell he was really excited about him. There’s multiple ways we could get him the ball.”
I'm so glad they decided to target additional weapons to truly unlock Ben's offensive system rather than force pick some mediocre lineman.