The Chicago Bears hold the first overall selection in the 2024 NFL Draft and they will have their choosing from the top quarterback prospects.

The overwhelming belief is that the Bears will be selecting Caleb Williams as the top pick in the draft. The Bears sent a large contingency of personnel to Souther California at the start of this week to not only have their presence felt at USC’s Pro Day but begin to check the final boxes of their evaluation of Williams. The Bears were the only team that Williams granted a meeting with ahead of his Pro Day on Wednesday.

The biggest takeaway from USC’s Pro Day is that Williams will be the next franchise quarterback of the Bears.

While the Bears are hoping that the quarterback position will finally be addressed with the selection of Williams, until that selection is officially made, the team will need to be exhaustive in their vetting of all the quarterback prospects at the top of the 2024 NFL Draft Class.

That will be the reason why the Bears will be present at Michigan’s Pro Day on Friday.

Michigan’s Pro Day — featuring the record 18 prospects it sent to the scouting combine in Indianapolis last month — is set for today in Ann Arbor. It is the spot to be for coaches and personnel people from across the league.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 22, 2024

Quarterback J.J. McCarthy is a prized prospect from Michigan this year and his stock has seen a rise since the NFL Scouting Combine. While it’s likely that the Bears won’t be front-and-center like they were on Wednesday at USC, this is a necessary evaluation for Ryan Poles.

Where Poles’ predecessor, Ryan Pace, failed in his 2017 selection of Mitch Trubisky is not the fact that he selected Trubisky but the process that led him to that decision. Pace was locked in on Trubisky and that led to him cutting corners in turns of his evaluation of Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson. It’s still entirely likely that the Bears would have still selected Trubisky but had they had a similar vetting process for each of the three quarterbacks, it’s possible that Pace would have realized there was a better option.

Poles has already proved he is much superior to Pace given how he has created a soft landing spot for Williams. But, in his willigness to evaluate the entire quarterback class, Poles is proving the importance of having conviction with the selection. When the Bears select Williams with the first overall selection in the 2024 NFL Draft, Poles will know they left no stone unturned.