Bear Digest

How NFL insider's QB draft assessment can affect Bears plans

If this turns out to be a draft more like 2022 than last year, the Bears' and teams positioned by them could be looking at a totally different Round 1 scenario.
Gene Chamberlain|
Not every draft is like last year with QB Caleb Williams No. 1 overall, and it's possible this year could be the year when a QB doesn't go near the top.
Not every draft is like last year with QB Caleb Williams No. 1 overall, and it's possible this year could be the year when a QB doesn't go near the top. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

Much changes in the run up to the NFL draft, and it could for the Bears this year if the scene being painted by one NFL insider turns out to be correct.

So much can happen early in the draft to impact teams slated to pick elsewhere in the top 10 each year.

A team needing pass rush help but out of reach of the best players might normally settle for a good offensive lineman, unless, of course something happens unexpected above them to change the order players fall. In particular, that would mean with QBs Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders.

With the Bears picking 10th, anything that occurs very early in the first round could give them the chance to move up this year and take one of the highly respected pass rushers available like Michigan's Mason Graham, Penn State edge Abdul Carter or Georgia's edge rushers Jalon Walker and Mykel Williams.

In his weekly mailbag, Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer responded to a question from @roletumbl about the early part of the draft and what he said could stand the entire first round on its head if true.

Breer was asked why the top two quarterbacks are "falling down" draft boards. The question itself is rather comical because no one knows they're falling down real draftboards. They might be falling on a few of the mock drafts by media people, but the NFL teams haven't even had the combine yet and pro days follow that. So nothing is written anywhere about such things at this point.

Breer confirms this for the reader but then adds: "I never heard anyone from a team say that either Ward or Sanders was in the class of the first three quarterbacks (Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye) selected last year. And I might go so far as to say the next three from 2024 (Michael Penix Jr., J.J. McCarthy, Bo Nix) were better prospects, too."

If this is the case, then perhaps Ward and Sanders are being projected far too early in the draft. Teams do not select players—even quarterbacks—just because they're the top player at their position. They need to at least show they have the ability to live up to the top 10 draft position. At least smart teams need to see this.

Perhaps it's one and not both of them who get drafted ahead of where the Bears pick.

The top quarterbacks in each class don't get taken every year near the top of the draft. Six QB in the top 12 picks don't happen every year. This hadn't happened at all until last year when Williams was No. 1.

In 2021, everyone rushed to the top of the board and Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson and Trey Lance went 1-3. Then came Justin Fields at 11 and Mac Jones at 15. How many of the teams who took those players are glad about it now? Maybe Jacksonville, but Lawrence has been leaning to the miss side lately.

Ryan Pace was so sure he had the right guy in 2018 that he traded up to No. 2 for no apparent reason to take Mitchell Trubisky, and then no other QB was drafted until Patrick Mahomes at No. 10.

If what Breer says turns out to be true, and teams realize the value is better at other positions than those two quarterbacks, it could mean the Bears lose out on one of the top two offensive linemen. Or it could mean they decide to trade up to get a pass rusher.

It also could work the other way if neither of those QBs are deemed top 10 worthy. Teams later in Round 1 who want a quarterback could be making the Bears offers with more picks to move back so they can move up into position for the QB.

It can mean about anything if the quarterbacks are not so highly coveted as they were last year or in 2023.

Maybe they'll deem it like 2022, when Kenny Pickett was the first QB taken at No. 20 overall.

Then all bets are off and the guessing game will just be beginning for teams like the Bears who are at the back end of the top 10, if not the trading.

Nothing can be assumed at this point in the draft process.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.