Percentages Say One Thing for 2023 Bears
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Owning the first pick of the draft doesn't say much percentage-wise for the Bears achieving success in the 2023 season.
Actually, it doesn't even say a lot for them making the playoffs in 2024. According to history, trading away the first pick or keeping it will guarantee little.
Going back as far as the 2004 draft—because there are no NFL players left who were drafted before then—only five of the 19 teams who made the top selection in the draft for those years reached the playoffs the same year.
This isn't a suprise because teams drafting first almost always are bad and need more than one draft to restock their talent.
The teams who made the playoffs the same year they drafted first were: the San Diego Chargers in 2004 when they wound up with Eli Manning and traded him to the Giants; Miami in 2008 when they picked Jake Long; Kansas City in 2013 when they took Eric Fisher; Indianapolis in 2012 when they drafted Andrew Luck; and Jacksonville in 2022 when it took edge rusher Travon Walker and went 9-8 to win the division and a playoff game.
What might be a surprise for Bears fans is how teams picking last usually were still bad or mediocre two years later.
Eight teams hadn't even reached .500 within two years of making the first pick in the draft.
Trading Places
The Bears are likely to make a big effort to trade the pick.
There is very little to go on regarding how this will work out for them because it's only been done two times in the 19-year period.
Technically, it was only done once in that period and that was when the Rams traded up to get Jared Goff.
The Titans traded away the first pick to the Rams in 2016 after a miserable 2015 season and then later that year went 9-7. The next year the Titans made the playoffs with the same 9-7 record.
The Rams traded away their first-round pick that year and another one, as well as two second-rounders, and two third-rounders
What they got in return helped in the future but only one player had a bigger role in the next two seasons when they were 9-7. They Rams drafted Derrick Henry with the second-round pick and he had 1,234 yards and 10 touchdowns total for his first two seasons before becoming a runaway train thereafter.
The other players they drafted were Austin Johnson, a reserve nose tackle who had 38 tackles and 11 /2 sacks for those next two seasons. They traded the third-round pick in the 2016 draft. The other players of substance they got with those picks were wide receiver Corey Davis and tight end Jonnu Smith. Davis had 34 receptions and no TDs in his rookie year of 2017 and Smith 18 catches and two TDs that year.
The only other time the top pick got traded in those 19 drafts was in 2004 and technically it wasn't really a traded pick because it was Manning who was traded but the effect was the same.
The Chargers had the first pick and drafted Manning, then traded him to the Giants for the fourth pick and other picks, before taking Philip Rivers.
That was the year the Chargers went 12-4 and won the division after making the first pick in the draft—the best record by a team in the past 19 years when they had the No. 1 pick that same season.
Then again, team in the Bears' situation rarely have more than $80 million in salary cap space for free agency besides owning the top pick in the draft.
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
