Bears mutual interest grows with highly versatile OL, discusses potentially working with Ben Johnson and protecting Caleb Williams
After shining and standing out at the 2025 Senior Bowl, North Dakota State's Grey Zabel has continued to impress teams throughout the draft process.His immediate rise has garnered interest throughout the entire league, mainly due to his positional versatility, something he considers "extremely critical."On Saturday at the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine, Zabel confirmed he had […]
After shining and standing out at the 2025 Senior Bowl, North Dakota State's Grey Zabel has continued to impress teams throughout the draft process.
His immediate rise has garnered interest throughout the entire league, mainly due to his positional versatility, something he considers "extremely critical."
On Saturday at the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine, Zabel confirmed he had a formal interview with the Chicago Bears, a team desperate for upgrades all over the interior of their offensive line.
Zabel is a guy who can check many boxes at multiple positions for the Bears or any other team. However, the possibility of playing with a quarterback like Caleb Williams seems to be something Zabel would like to experience.
"It went well," Zabel said of his meeting with the Bears on Saturday. "They're a really talented football team, love the QB and love watching him play. Being able to watch his highlights and understand how special his talents are is pretty cool."
Some of those special talents Williams possesses is being able to extend plays at a high level, which present issues for those blocking in front of him.
That was clearly evident during his rookie season in which Williams was sacked a league-high 68 times, many of which were caused by extending plays too long.
When asked about how he would handle such a unique situation, Zabel was able to say all the right things.
"To understand what kind of QB you have is super important, Zabel added. "I know the talents Caleb has are pretty remarkable. His feet are unbelievable but at the same time, there is pros and cons. Understanding who you have behind you and what you gotta do because at the end of the day, your job is to protect him and make sure he doesn't get touched."
During his career at NDSU, Zable started at left tackle in 2024 but logged snaps at right tackle, left guard, and right guard during the 2023 season. At the Senior Bowl, Zabel also showcased his ability to line up at center and impressed there as well.
That versatility has skyrocketed his stock into the late Day 1, early Day 2 range. Which puts him right in range to potentially join the Bears as a second-round pick.
As versatile as he is on the offensive front, Zabel even shared a secret talent at the combine that could be enticing new head coach Ben Johnson.
"I played quarterback until the 8th grade year and then they saw my body frame and said, 'go have fun on the offensive line protecting people,' I think throwing a football is kind of a hidden talent of mine," Zabel explained. "Maybe a team sees that."
Well, if he lands in Chicago, that's something Johnson will definitely keep in mind. Johnson is the king of trick plays lately and even allowed Penei Sewell, his right tackle in Detroit, to throw some passes from time to time.
“The best part of that was he threw a dime every single time in practice,” Johnson said about Sewell earlier this week. “We probably took that for three weeks. I mean, it was a dime. It was better than some other people, ‘Jared Goff.’ It was pretty darn good throwing on the move. He’s a freak.”
I might be getting too far ahead of myself envisioning Zabel throwing the rock in Chicago to catch defenses by surprise. At the end of the day, there seems to be some mutual interest here between the two sides, but we'll see if the Bears even get the opportunity to snag him in the second-round.
Bears 2025 Mock Offseason: Predicting the team’s free agent signings, trades, and draft picks after what we learned at the NFL Combine
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