Five Easy Pieces to Bears Disaster

It's virtually impossible for the Bears to come away completely satisfied with this first draft GM Ryan Poles makes.

They can't be winners on draft day without a first-round pick. It's that simple.

The best that can be said is they can live with what they get, or they like what they did considering the circumstances. Those circumstances: former GM Ryan Pace left them without picks in rounds 1, 4 and 7. That's the way he used to conduct busiess. Pace went without picks in rounds 3 and 4 in 2021, without picks in rounds 1, 3, 4 and 6 in 2020 and 1, 2 and 5 in 2019.

"It's definitely a challenge but at the same time that's why I was hired, that's why our group is doing what we do is to take what we have and construct the best roster we can and have the best draft we can," Poles said.

They have ways to get back some picks but it's not going to be easy.

So Pace left a major road block and the Bears must mitigate circumstances as best they can to come out with a respectable effort.

Or they can act irrationally and waste this draft to come out complete losers. Here are the ways they can turn this draft into a total loss.

1. Trading Up to Round 1

It would be entirely possible for the Bears to find a team with cap issues or totally disenchanted with their possible picks in Round 1, a team willing to take a second and a third for a first-round pick, or two second-round picks for a first-rounder.

Perish the thought.

Trading away both second-round picks would leave the Bears a first-rounder, a third-rounder at 71, then nothing until they get picks 148 and 50 in Round 5. Then they have the 186th pick in Round 6 and that's it.

There isn't a wide receiver the Bears can select in the first round who would justify throwing away both of those second-round picks. Even reuniting Justin Fields with Ohio State receivers Chris Olave or Garrett Wilson would not be worth throwing away two second-round picks.

A second and a third would be unlikely to elevate them higher than very late first round and their choice of top receivers would be limited then, anyway.

The main reason the Bears can't afford to make this trade even for the chance at receivers Fields knows well is they'll give up two for one. They have only six picks. Now they're going to give up another one to get a first-rounder?

Poles last team, the Chiefs, had a history of trading up for players. Teams can afford to do that when their roster is stocked.

"There are different values on your board, and if you have certain players that are in a certain section of the board and it makes sense for your team at that time, then that's something you have to do at the right time," Poles said. "But I think you have to know where your team is at and how many picks you have, and it's a big-picture decision because there is an effect of losing picks to move up and get that player."

This will be an awfully pitiful draft if they come out of it with five players, no one between the top of the third round and top of the fifth round, and they have a huge amount of roster holes to fill.

They need bodies. They need capable bodies.

This draft needs to be about quantity every bit as much as quality, or at least perceived quality.

2. Trading for Veteran Wide Receiver

Really, this option should fall under the category of ruining not only this draft but also future drafts.

There are rumors about receivers like Deebo Samuel, A.J. Brown and Kadarius Toney being available for trade.

At least with Brown and Samuel, the Bears would need first-round picks to make trades. The only way they could get this pick is reach into their future. They'd probably need to take their 2023 and 2024 first-round picks for Samuel, and no team is doing that for a receiver. Few teams would want picks that far in the future for wide receivers, anyway.

Maybe teams reach so far into the future for a quarterback who they have a strong belief in but receivers can be found every year, and even acceptable ones can be found in later rounds. That's not the case at quarterback.

The biggest reason the Bears don't need to trade future first-round picks for a disgruntled veteran wide receiver is they just got rid of a general manager who seemed to have no problem doing this type of thing. And everyone knows it's a way to ruin a team's future.

It's easy to look at a team like the Rams and see how they throw out early draft picks in order to bring in veterans or sign free agents.

The Rams did not set down the foundation for their championship team by trading away early picks or signing free agents. They drafted Aaron Donald and other key players on both sides of the ball until they were in position where a few more players in free agency or a trade for Matthew Stafford could put them over the top.

The Bears are so far from being in that position that it's almost a 180-degree factor.

They need to lay the groundwork for a winning franchise with draft picks, lots of draft picks this year and next year.

3. Failing to Trade Down Early

Either the 39th, 48th or 71st pick must go in a trade for an extra pick, and if it's one of the two second-round picks then it's possible it could bring back two extra picks. One of those would be later.

This is their best chance to position themselves into the fourth round or even earn an extra third-round pick.

The difference between getting some of the players they have brought in for top-30 visits and sorting through mediocre offensive/defensive linemen and cornerbacks in Round 5 is getting extra picks in that late third-round and/or fourth-round range.

Owning the 148th and 150th picks might look like a good place to trade away a pick and move down.

The problem with moving down in the fifth, sixth and seventh rounds is you're getting fifth- sixth- and seventh-round players in return.

No one should be trying to acquire seventh-round picks.

Jerry Angelo kept trading down in 2007 and 2008 and accumulated seven seventh-round picks. He wound up with Ervin Baldwin, Chester Adams, Joey LaRocque, Kirk Barton, Marcus Monk, Trumaine McBride and Aaron Brant.

The seventh round is barely better than signing undrafted free agents. If a team gets special teams reps out of a rookie seventh-round pick they are way ahead of the game. It's basically shopping for a car in a junkyard.

The fifth- and sixth-round picks offer more hope, especially the fifth round. The Bears have had very little sixth-round success, though. There is still hope for Dazz Newsome, Khalil Herbert and Thomas Graham Jr. but they were not immediate starters. Their previous 10 sixth-round picks were Duke Shelley, Kylie Fitts, DeAndre Houston-Carson, Tayo Fabuluje, David Fales, Pat O'Donnell, Cornelius Washington, Isaiah Frey, J.T. Thomas and Dan LeFevour. O'Donnell and Houston-Carson have been special teams helps but there are no quality starters in this group.

So the extra picks they find must come in areas between Rounds 2-5.

4. No Starting Guard Candidate

The Bears lined up Sam Mustipher and Dakota Dozier as the starting right guards in minicamp. That's all you need to know.

They must find a starting right guard candidate and the only place to really find them is in the first four rounds.

If they wait until the fifth round the chances are this player won't even play as a rookie and might never amount to starting quality.

Dozier was a fourth-rounder and was a starter one out of his eight NFL seasons.

Sure, it's possible to find starting offensive linemen very late in the draft or even as an undrafted free agent. It takes plenty of time for such players to adjust to starting level in the NFL if they even have the ability to do it.

Justin Fields doesn't have time for adjustments when he's falling to the turf underneath about 1,000 pounds or so of pass rushers.

5. Finishing with No X-Receiver Prospect

They need a potential X-receiver starter, if not two of them. This doesn't have to be in Round 2, but the odds on finding one who is going to start immediately are much worse starting in Round 3.

No wide receiver taken after Round 2 in the last two drafts made more than 35 receptions as a rookie aside from Darnell Mooney (61) and Amon-Ra St. Brown (90).

Remember, those were considered deep and great receiver classes.

Waiting to find your receiver in the draft invites disaster.

There is one quality the Bears could find later in the draft among receivers and that's speed.

Plenty of receivers come into the draft with great speed, but they're being picked later in the draft because they don't play the position as well. Still, it's possible to find eventual contributors late in the draft at receiver who are really fast and scare defenses. They had visits with Baylor's Tyquan Thornton, who ran 4.28, and SMU's Danny Gray, who ran 4.33. Both could still be available on Day 3.

The problem is Fields needs a receiver who can play immediately almost as bad as he needs a starting right guard blocking for him this season. The burners later in the draft won't be starting immediately.

The situation with Byron Pringle's arrest over the weekend makes the situation at receiver all the more urgent for the Bears because they lined him up as the starting X-receiver at camp.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven