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NFL Insider Finds Reason to Suspect Bears Would Make a Big Trade Up

GM Ryan Poles did say the team was positioned for the draft to be agile moving up or down and at least one league insider sees them giving up a pick to advance.
Gene Chamberlain|
Alabama offensive lineman Kadyn Proctor could be a player who attracts the Bears' interest but their are limits to how far up they'd go for him.
Alabama offensive lineman Kadyn Proctor could be a player who attracts the Bears' interest but their are limits to how far up they'd go for him. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

The assumption with the Bears in a draft is they're always looking to move back for picks.

GM Ryan Poles has done it more often than he has moved up, but SI.com's insider Albert Breer suggests a possible scenario where the Bears would be willing to give up a pick to climb all the way from No. 25 to No. 15.

"Mark the Buccaneers down as another team looking to move down on Thursday night, from their perch at No. 15. And I think they’re positioned to pull it off," Breer wrote on Tuesday evening. "Behind them, you have the Lions at 17, Panthers at 19, Steelers at 21, Eagles at 23, Browns at 24 and Bears at 25 as teams that might need tackle help.

"And with a run on the position potentially looming over that alley of picks, the Bucs could give someone the opportunity to jump the line."

Poles kept all possibilities in mind when he spoke briefly at Tuesday's predraft press conference featuring assistant GM Jeff King.

"If things start to shift and move, we're agile enough to make adjustments, if that's moving up or moving back," Poles said. "We'll be ready for anything that comes our way."

Bears' draft agility has limits

Could the agile Bears be on the move for a tackle?

Never discount the importance of a left tackle solution on the offensive line. As King pointed out during his part of the press conference, Darnell Wright has been a starter since the day he arrived in the draft. The Bears could stand to have the same solution on the other side. With Ozzy Trapillo's severe knee injury suffered in mid-January, there's the possibility he sits out the entire season.

They took measures to bring back Braxton Jones, signed Jedrick Wills Jr. and still have Theo Benedet. Neither Benedet nor Jones were good enough options to prevent them from turning to All-Pro guard Joe Thuney as a tackle against the Rams. So a real solution at left tackle would make sense.

Coach Ben Johnson definitely knows he value of an offensive lineman who allows Caleb Williams to throw. They cut their sack total last year from 68 to 24 and would like it to stay at that low level while Williams works on his accuracy.

The NFL Mock Draft Database currently has Georgia tackle Monroe Freeling graded 14th on its big board. Also in that range are Alabama behemoth left tackle Kadyn Proctor and Clemson's Blake Miller. But Miller has been almost exclusively a right tackle.

It doesn't take a wild imagination to see the Bears moving up for a tackle. They might not need to go all the way to Tampa's position to pull in Proctor, a player whose pro day workout was observed by both King and Poles.

However, PFF did a blowout analytical post on Proctor and produced a shocking result.

"Poctor is a massive, powerful offensive line prospect with surprisingly good coordination and movement ability for his size," PFF wrote. "However, his lack of ideal foot speed and arm length for tackle likely makes him a strong candidate to move inside to guard."

In that case it would be difficult to picture the Bears moving up to No. 15. That kind of a move up requires 330 points on the Drafttek value chart, and it just happens to be the same total their 57th pick in Round 2 is worth.

It would be difficult to see Poles volunteering to give up one of his two highly valued second-round picks to move up 10 spots for a short-armed, slower offensive tackle. There are real questions whether Proctor could play in a wide zone blocking scheme like the Bears tend to use.

Perhaps if a truly talented safety like Ohio State's Caleb Downs began falling, they might be tempted.

In a year when the draft talent has been described as average or worse, there's little reason to be agile going up the board but plenty of reasons to be agile going backward and taking more picks.

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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.

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