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Reading Mel Kiper Jr.'s grades the morning after the draft is like a holiday tradition. No matter how much we all understand intuitively that it's impossible to project future success, we still want to know what the man who has spent three decades evaluating draft classes thinks of our favorite team's efforts.

You'll need an Insider subscription to read the entire evaluation, but below is what I can sneak to you if you don't tell anyone:

Green Bay Packers

Mel's grade: B+

Kiper Jr. snippet: " I love what Green Bay got out of this draft, particularly at two spots -- defensive end and running back."

Seifert comment: The Packers really went after the running back position, drafting two backs -- Eddie Lacy and Johnathan Franklin -- that many teams pegged as feature backs on their own. Franklin also hedges concerns about Lacy's durability. The Packers can feel confident that at least one of them will make an impact on 2013. Defensive end Datone Jones is a different-looking player than what the Packers currently have at the position, and fits into the league's trend toward longer and leaner even for 3-4 ends.

Minnesota Vikings

Mel's grade: B

Kiper Jr. snippet: "Hey, they got starters, but they needed to add impact in this draft considering they dealt [Percy] Harvin and had a few pretty big needs."

Seifert comment: A good portion of evaluating this draft will come down to whether receiver Cordarrelle Patterson pans out. The Vikings gave up their chance to draft a starting-caliber middle linebacker, among other things, by trading back up into the first round to draft him. The Harvin trade was a big motivator. Kiper really thought the Vikings needed to get linebacker Manti Te'o; I just thought they needed someone at that position. Seventh-round draft pick Michael Mauti could be a factor if he can recover from a third torn ACL. Regardless, three first-round draft choices give the Vikings a good chance at a high-impact draft.

Detroit Lions

Mel's grade: B

Kiper Jr. snippet: "The pivot point for how we see this draft in three years will be [Ezekiel] Ansah. If he's great, then it looks good. If he's not, and Dee Milliner thrives with the Jets, fans will wonder."

Seifert comment: It would be disappointing if the Lions didn't get at least two functional starters out of their first three picks. It doesn't matter who is on the field for the first play of the game, but you would like to see Ansah get as many snaps as he can for development purposes. Cornerback Darius Slay should compete with Bill Bentley to start opposite Chris Houston and, at worst, play in nickel situations that comprise more than half of most team's defensive snaps. And third-round guard Larry Warford should push hard for the right guard spot.

Chicago Bears

Mel's grade: C+

Kiper Jr. snippet: "My issue with [Kyle] Long isn't that he's short on talent -- he's not. I just wasn't in love with the value."

Seifert comment: We'll never know if the Bears would have been better off trading down to grab Long later or waiting until the second round. Kiper Jr. didn't like the decision and thought tight end Tyler Eifert would have been a better choice. I'm stuck here, because we all know how much help the Bears' offensive line needs. Solidifying an interior spot, if that's what Long does, will help quarterback Jay Cutler in a measureable way. That's no different in the big picture than what Eifert could do. We all can agree, however, that the Bears upgraded their linebacker depth significantly with Jon Bostic and Khaseem Greene.

Related: For fun, here are Kiper Jr.s NFC North grades for the 2010, 2011 and 2012 drafts.

LAKE FOREST, Ill. -- With three linebackers flying off the board early on Day 2 -- Manti Te'o (No. 38), Kevin Minter (No. 45) and Kiko Alonso (No. 46) -- the Chicago Bears joined the party at No. 50 and selected University of Florida inside linebacker Jonathan Bostic to complement the offseason additions of veterans D.J. Williams and James Anderson.

Linebacker was a must for the Bears.

Bears general manager Phil Emery needed to find a young linebacker to push Williams and Anderson for starting jobs, while at the same time providing the club with insurance in the event one of the front line guys went down with an injury.

“The reason we like Jon -- he’s a three-position linebacker,” Emery said. “We felt it was very important that if we were going to take a linebacker in the second round, that we get somebody who can immediately fill in at all three spots. If one of our starters was not available due to injury, that he could fill in immediately and we would have a good football player in place right now.

“Obviously he’ll be given the opportunity to earn a starting job. We see him as a future starter.”

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Former Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o visited with the Chicago Bears at Halas Hall in the past few weeks, according to a league source.

Te'o visited the Miami Dolphins on Wednesday, according to the Palm Beach Post.

The All-American traveled to Detroit earlier in the week to meet with the Lions, and is also scheduled to visit the San Diego Chargers, ESPN's Ed Werder reported on Tuesday.

ESPN Insider Mel Kiper Jr. has the Bears selecting Te'o with the No. 20 overall pick in his latest mock draft.

Former Kansas State linebacker Arthur Brown visited the Bears on Monday and Tuesday, one of several linebackers the club plans to host in advance of the NFL draft.

Te'o, a four-year starter for the Fighting Irish, led all linebackers in the nation last year with seven interceptions and finished his Notre Dame career as the school's third all-time leading tackler.

But Te'o's draft stock slipped after a poor performance versus Alabama in the BCS Championship Game, followed by a highly-publicized off-the-field hoax that Te'o was forced to address in front of reporters at the NFL Combine in February.

Draft experts continue to link former Notre Dame star Manti Te'o to the Chicago Bears, but the recent landscape change at the linebacker position due to the additions of D.J. Williams and James Anderson, and needs in other areas appear to make that unlikely.

That's not to say that Te'o to the Bears won't happen. He's certainly a first-round talent who probably improved his stock slightly at a recent pro day workout. But as one NFC personnel man said Friday morning, the 20th overall pick might be "a tad rich for Te'o."

Perhaps the Bears feel that way, too.

So if there's truly a level of interest in selecting the linebacker, the Bears could be pondering ways to move back some to land him. While the 20th pick might be too high to draft Te'o for some, several personnel evaluators consider him worthy of a pick closer to the bottom of the first round.

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All week Scouts Inc. has been taking a look at how the NFC's divisions have been affected by this year's free-agent shuffle. After tackling the East, South and West, the old Black-and-Blue Division, the NFC North is up.

Kevin Weidl examines the thinking these teams may have going into the 2013 NFL draft.

CHICAGO BEARS

General manager Phil Emery was one of the more active players in free agency this year. The Bears have made three key pickups so far. None of those acquisitions were bigger than signing LT Jermon Bushrod from New Orleans to try to solve their offensive line woes and help prolong the career of franchise QB Jay Cutler, who was sacked 44 times and knocked down 87 in 2012. Chicago also upgraded at TE with Martellus Bennett and made a great move by keeping DT Henry Melton, who is one of the more underrated defensive linemen in the league.

Looking toward the draft, the most glaring need now appears to be at middle linebacker. Talks have fizzled with Brian Urlacher and it appears his days in Chicago are more than likely over.

With the 20th pick in the first round, the Bears could have a few options at inside linebacker. Georgia ILB Alec Ogletree would be the first that comes to mind. From a talent standpoint, this would be a steal for Chicago at 20. In my opinion, Ogletree is one of the most athletically gifted prospects on tape in this class. Similar to Urlacher, Ogletree is a former safety who moves well in space, covers a lot of ground and holds a tremendous amount of versatility. He is a flat-out playmaker in every sense of the word.

Ogletree has his flaws. He needs to continue to get stronger at the point of attack and can do a better job of using his hands when taking on blocks. In addition, he comes with some character baggage that teams must take a hard look at it. Reports are, however, that his football character is strong and on tape he's a potential top-10 talent who could end up being a steal for a team like Chicago in the back half of the first round.

Notre Dame's Manti Te'o is another option at this point. Te'o has taken an absolute beating from the media since a poor national championship performance, the bizzare girlfriend scandal and a subpar combine showing where he clocked a 4.82 40-yard dash. For me, the latter of the three is the most concerning because on tape, Te'o doesn't show great range in coverage. This brings up concerns for Te'o in terms of scheme fit with the Bears, who asked their mike linebacker to do a lot and cover a lot of space. Make no mistake though, Te'o is a quality football player who possesses outstanding instincts and would bring a lot of toughness and leadership to a Bears defense that has hung their hat on those traits for many years.

To read the rest of Weidl's take on the Bears and the other three NFC North teams, click here.

PHOENIX -- The Chicago Bears' chairman wanted Brian Urlacher back in 2013. So did the Bears' coaching staff. So why did the team announce Wednesday evening that it was unable to reach a contract agreement with Urlacher, presumably ending his 13-year tenure with the team?

Let's go back to the place we started this conversation in January. If there were ever a time to make a clean break from a franchise player, it's during the kind of transition the Bears are experiencing. The arrival of new coach Marc Trestman, and the breakup of a defensive scheme that extended back almost a decade, provided a logical and relatively controversy-free departure point for an icon in the twilight of his career.

The way I see it, if you're going to have a transition year, you might as well pile on as many of the changes as you can for the foreseeable future. A "transition year" doesn't necessarily have to be a "rebuilding year," but the Bears were already going to be dealing with change in 2013. The faster you deal with it, the quicker you can move forward.

If anything, I've been surprised at how far the Bears took this process. I envisioned them emerging from their pre-combine organizational meetings and informing Urlacher they would be moving on. Clearly, however, Trestman and his staff got a look at the Bears' depth -- or lack thereof -- and realized there could be some short-term pain associated with Urlacher's departure. Earlier Wednesday, I wondered if Trestman wanted Urlacher back to serve as a quasi-mediator between the new coaching staff and the locker room upon which he held a solid grip.

Coaches, of course, are trained to value today and tomorrow -- not next year and beyond. It's the job of the Bears' front office, and especially general manger Phil Emery, to consider the bigger picture. And it's clear, no matter what might be said publicly, that the Bears wanted to jump-start the process of rebuilding a linebacker corps that has remained largely intact for years.

How do you navigate the complex issue of nudging out a franchise icon who still wants to play, while also juggling the short-term desires of the coaching staff and the wishes -- detached or otherwise -- of ownership? You make an offer that you're pretty sure will be refused.

I'm not a mind-reader. I can't tell you for sure that Emery followed that a strategy that has been used many other times in NFL history. But the outside clues sure do suggest it. Urlacher, in fact, told Vaughn McClure of the Chicago Tribune that he received a take-it-or-leave-it one-year contract offer worth a maximum of $2 million.

You and I might agree that's a reasonable value for a middle linebacker with a balky knee and 13 NFL seasons of wear on his body. But it represented about a 75 percent pay cut from Urlacher's 2012 compensation, a drop that few Hall of Fame players would agree to. Urlacher told the Tribune it was "a slap in the face." For context, consider that the Baltimore Ravens paid now-retired middle linebacker Ray Lewis $4.95 million to play his 17th and final season in 2012.

And before you bring it up, let's not blame the Bears' tight salary-cap situation for this decision. Urlacher's cap figure wouldn't have been any more than $2 million in 2013 under that offer. If they wanted, the Bears could have used any number of salary cap tricks to maintain that figure while offering Urlacher more cash. They didn't. They wanted him back only on the terms of a clearance sale -- if at all.

Let's be clear: There will be short-term pain that will follow this decision. The Bears must replace not only Urlacher but also strong-side linebacker Nick Roach, who signed with the Oakland Raiders, at the same time.

In a best-case scenario, the Bears will open the season with one of the draft's top middle linebackers -- perhaps Georgia's Alec Ogletree or even Notre Dame's Manti Te'o -- in the starting lineup. It might take several offseasons to reassemble a credible group of starting linebackers.

In the end, the Bears had ignored this pending transition long enough. Ideally, they would have had an heir on the roster already to take Urlacher's job. Now, they have an urgency that no NFL team prefers. But if not now, when? The urgency would only increase.

By the end of this offseason, it's quite possible that we'll set an NFC North blog record for discussions about inside linebackers. The Chicago Bears need a long-term replacement for Brian Urlacher, the Minnesota Vikings' starter (Jasper Brinkley) is a pending free agent, the Green Bay Packers might be looking for help at inside linebacker, and the draft's most recognizable name is Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o.

To that end, it's worth noting where the inside linebacker class stands, at least in the eyes of ESPN analysts Mel Kiper Jr. and Todd McShay. Kiper Jr. updated his list of the five best players at each position this week, while McShay released his third mock draft.

McShay had two inside linebackers in his mock: Georgia's Alec Ogletree to the New Orleans Saints at No. 15 and Te'o to the Baltimore Ravens at No. 32. Kiper's top five, on the other hand, looks this way:

1. Te'o
2. Ogletree
3. LSU's Kevin Minter
4. Florida's Jonathan Bostic
5. North Carolina's Kevin Reddick

Ogletree is considered the most talented inside linebacker in the draft, but has experienced two significant off-field issues in the past year, a drug suspension and a drunken-driving arrest. Obviously, Kiper Jr. thinks those issues will hurt him more than McShay does. Minter didn't impress teams at the NFL scouting combine with his time of 4.81 in the 40-yard dash at 246 pounds.

It makes you wonder if one of our teams would have a chance to draft a top-five inside linebacker in the bottom half of the second round. These assessments will change once again now that pro days have begun, but that's where things stand at the moment.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Although the name Manti Te'o generates buzz among some Chicago Bears fans, it’s not likely the team will risk the odds of him turning out to be a first-round dud.

With franchise stalwart Brian Urlacher set to enter free agency, there seems to be a sense of urgency to find an heir apparent at the middle linebacker position. But two personnel evaluators believe there might be better options at the position for the Bears at No. 20.

General manager Phil Emery was asked at the NFL Combine whether Urlacher’s pending free-agent status could affect the team’s decision making in April when the team goes on the clock in the first round of the draft or next month in free agency.

“The qualities (Urlacher) brings, probably you say when you fill the roster how many linebackers we have has an impact,” Emery said. “But right now where we’re at in the process, we’re here to look at really good players and see if they fit.”

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Let's follow up on this week's post on the possibility of the Chicago Bears drafting Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o. As we noted, ESPN analyst Todd McShay projected the Bears taking him at No. 20 overall after both he and Kiper had him rated as a top-5 prospect last month.

McShay landed where I think most people in the NFL will: The well-publicized hoax story involving Te'o and a person he thought was his girlfriend won't play a leading role in his draft status. More relevant, McShay said, are questions about whether Te'o projects as a top-flight prospect.

"He's a very good player," McShay said in the video. "That's obvious. I don't think he's an elite top-5, top-10 talent. He's not a Patrick Willis. He's not a Luke Kuechly."

Kiper suggested that Te'o's time in the 40-yard dash, assuming he runs one at the NFL scouting combine later this month, will hold the key to his status. But both Kiper and McShay suggested that Georgia's Alec Ogletree could wind up being viewed a better pro prospect by draft day.