One thing about trades in the NFL draft? There is a distinct difference between wanting to move and being able to move. It’s one thing to desire trading up or down in a given round. The problem is two teams are required to make something like that happen. That is why the speculation around the Chicago Bears moving up for a quarterback as if it’s a foregone conclusion? Yeah, that might be a bit premature.
One reason why? Where the Bears sit in the draft. Holding the 20th pick makes any jump into the top 10 difficult. Not just because of price but also a reluctance by teams to move that far down. Albert Breer of the MMQB explained why in his latest column. Due to the unusual nature of this offseason, teams don’t have a lot of highly-graded prospects on their boards.
“First, the weird draft cycle (no private workouts, no 30 visits, no combine, just one all-star game and limited school calls in the fall) has made for more guesswork, and less consistency in how players should fall from team to team. And two, there aren’t a ton of elite prospects this year. Some teams will be into their second-round grades by the late teens. I haven’t found a single team yet with more than 18 players carrying first-round grades on their board.”
That tells the story right there.
Any team that considers a move down to #20 would confront the danger that all of the top prospects on their board could be gone by the time they’re back on the clock. That isn’t to say nobody would do so. It just reinforces the point that Chicago is in a tough spot. Those fears about that late-season win streak ruining their draft position have come to pass. Now their hopes of landing a top quarterback are challenging to say the least.
While it’s okay for Bears fans to have high hopes this coming Thursday, it might be best for them to temper expectations. At least when it comes to anticipating a big move. It isn’t like Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy don’t understand the situation. They know they need a quarterback. The problem is there isn’t much they can do if other teams aren’t willing to cooperate.
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Good Chicago Bears drafts aren’t decided by bold moves
Last year should serve as a reminder. Pace did nothing fancy with his top two picks in the 2nd round and ended up with two seemingly solid football players in Cole Kmet and Jaylon Johnson. Chicago has eight picks in this draft including all three of their picks in the first three rounds. If the Bears continue their evaluation hot streak from last year, they have a great chance to come away with some instant contributors on this roster.
Also, the second wave of quarterbacks isn’t as bad this year as compared to others. At least in terms of talent. Davis Mills, Kyle Trask, and Kellen Mond all have intriguing enough traits that make them potential future starters in the NFL. Enough to where the Chicago Bears brass might convince themselves that gambling on them is more practical than a reckless jump up the board for what could be the fourth QB off the board.
If a move is going to happen, where is the window?
Everybody of note continues to point at the picks between #7 and #10 as the area to watch. Detroit (#7), Carolina (#8), Denver (#9), and Dallas (#10) have all been connected to rumors about a desire to move down. That at least gives the Bears decent odds of convincing one of them to make a deal. Whether the quarterback they covet falls that far is another problem for another discussion.
