Draft season baby! As always the center of gravity for unlocking how April will unfold revolves around the quarterbacks. Lovie Smith even gave us all a belated Christmas present winning on his way out the door in Houston to give this year’s QB debate an extra winkle.
With the Bears in the driver seat and a developing QB already in the fold, they suddenly had a grab bag of options available on which direction to steer the franchise and the masses weren’t shy about weighing in on the debate.
Stay put and draft a quarterback anyway?
Draft two and try to get one! It has some credence but managing two young QBs is a high wire act NFL franchises aren’t ready to stomach yet. Not at number one overall anyway. The Eagles pulled it off, but that was with seeds of doubt already planted on Carson Wentz and a much lower second round investment in Jalen Hurts.
Stay put and pick the best non quarterback? The Bears roster looks like a blanket that someone decided to use for target practice with a machine gun. Leaving trade assets on the table never seemed like a viable option as multiple teams lined up for the chance to trade up to the top slot. If an elite WR or OT were available, i think they might have paused a little longer, but Calvin Johnson and Walter Jones are not available on their big board.
That likely left the Bears with two main options: trade Justin Fields or trade down.
The initial assumption was that Chicago would move the pick, snag an elite defender in the top ten and be done with it, but there was plenty of chatter on the other side of the fence:
Fields hasn’t exactly lit it up as a passer. If the Bears love one of the QB’s in this class, they’d be better off dealing Fields and extending their window with a rookie contract at QB.
Some people even took the stance the Bears should just explore both options and take the best offer.
The debate was heating up, but just when it was starting to sizzle, the Bears made their move. Chicago sent the number one pick to Carolina for:
-#9 overall
-A late 2
-a first next year
-a second in 2025
-and D.J. Moore
How’d they do?
Some imagine scenarios where Chicago could’ve come out of this richer than they are now with potential suitors at 2 (Houston), 4 (Indianapolis), 6 (Detroit), 7 (Las Vegas), and 8 (Atlanta), but it’s hard to say if any of the logical trade partners would’ve actually played ball. Maybe only one of those teams was legitimately interested.
Could they have waited longer and driven up the price? Maybe. But the real fault line here was free agency. The value could have gone up if free agency didn’t go as planned for a certain team. Unfortunately the flip side is also true and teams might have filled needs and chilled the market.
The Bears opted to lock in at the current price. They still have a chance to snag a great young player early. They’ve added three top 70 picks over the next three years, and if the Panthers are starting a rookie, next year’s 1 might prove to be more valuable than you think . On top of all that, they now have an anchor for their receiving corps. D.J. Moore isn’t an elite WR1 but he can at least pretend to be one while whatever young weapon they find acclimates to the league. Trading what became pick 32 for Chase Claypool at the trade deadline was a massive blunder, but if he’s their WR3 all of a sudden maybe they’re light years ahead of what they rolled out last year.
Add it all up and i think the Bears got a fair deal. Thoughts of pulling off some gambit where they traded down to 2 and then traded down again to get more capital sound great but probably aren’t as realistic as they feel.
The real question is whether Chicago could have secured a higher bounty by trading Fields? Even if they could have should they have gone for it?
The offer would have to have been pretty juicy for me to move off Fields at this point. He has seasoned for two years. We know he is an electric runner. Detractors are acting like he has been a zero as a passer, but look closely. There are enough flashes to remain faithful. Focus early in games when the script is best and the game plan is still fresh. Wow throws are there. Then as games progressed the infrastructure didn’t hold up. The o-line, the receivers, the defense, none of it was good enough. The pressure on Fields mounted. He pressed and made mistakes.
Blame him some. He absolutely still needs to improve. But roll out all of the poor passing statistics that you want … he’s the 33rd rated passer in this advanced metric or that. Ok, but who had a worse supporting cast? Texans? Patriots? Colts? Titans? Cardinals? Rams post Kupp injury? The Bears win that contest pretty easily. No, Fields wasn’t able to elevate everything around him, but that would have been something like getting the Titanic to float.
Support him and he’ll be good. Maybe great. Beyond that it the decision boiled down to an evaluation of the 2023 quarterback class. C.J. Stroud, Bryce Young, Anthony Richardson, and Will Levis have been touted as the big four and there’s no consensus favorite as the top guy. I would take Fields over all of them and it’s not close. He still has the highest ceiling and might also have the lowest floor. There are no sure fire franchise QB’s in this draft class. I say let it ride Chicago. Play the Fields.
Part 2, i’ll break the main prospects in the 2023 QB class.
No comments:
Post a Comment