What would it take for the Bears to trade up for Trevor Lawrence or Justin Fields?
Is there anyway the Bears can make the jump into the top three conversation?
Mitchell Trubisky is not the answer at quarterback for the Chicago Bears.
It’s obvious boarding on repetitive, but cannot be repeated enough.
Unless Trubisky leads an incredible turnaround, throwing for over 2,000 yards and averaging near 7.2 yards per throw the remainder of the season (which would boost his nearly league-worst totals), he’s on borrowed time in Chicago.
Because the Bears are painfully mediocre as opposed to outright awful, they will likely be picking in the middle of the first round and not in position to take one of the top quarterback prospects on the board. It would take gross negligence by every other team in the league or something bold for the Bears to land a Trevor Lawrence or Justin Fields to help turn the franchise around.
Something as bold as a Hail Mary trade up.
Chicago Bears: How could Trevor Lawrence or Justin Fields trade work?
Lawrence and Fields are expected to go No.1 and No. 2 overall, respectively. Both the New York Jets and Jacksonville Jaguars are expected to take quarterbacks with their top picks which would likely take the top two prospects off the board.
What the Bears should do is follow the blueprint laid out by the Philadelphia Eagles back in 2016.
That year, the Eagles traded a pair of players and their original pick at No. 13 overall to Miami for the No. 8 selection. Later, Philadelphia offered the Cleveland Browns that pick plus a future first-round selection, as well as a second, third and fourth-round pick in the next two drafts to move up to No. 2 overall.
The pick became Carson Wentz, but the plan to move up high enough to get the guy you want worked.
That’s what the Bears could do. Chicago should look to swing a trade with either Atlanta, Miami, Philadelphia, or the Chargers, teams without big enough quarterback questions to justify taking one in the Top 10. Pulling off a trade would probably require pairing the pick with a top-tier player tailored to the receiving team’s specific area of need, but being bold isn’t about doing things the easy way.
From there, the best move would be to entice New York or Jacksonville to move back with a package of picks. According to the NFL Draft value chart, depending on which pick they landed in the No. 6-9 the Bears would need to make up anywhere between 1,000 to 1,250 value points to make a trade worth accepting for the Jaguars and would need 1,400 to 1,650 (and likely a ton of sweetener) to convince the Jets to move back.
If the Bears swing and hit on only one half of the Eagles blueprint, they’re still in a prime position to take a highly graded quarterback prospect. The sell on getting the Jaguars to trade down would be that NDSU’s Trey Lance and BYU’s Zach Wilson would likely still available in the No. 6-9 range, and the Bears wouldn’t have to give up the handful of mid-round selections needed to make a package for Jacksonville.
Keep the picks to build around Lance or Wilson? That sounds like a pretty good compromise to missing out on Fields or Lawrence.
Who knows who the Bears general manager will be when April rolls around, but whoever it is needs to consider the prospect of a trade up. If it’s Pace, this would be a Hail Mary to save his job and if it’s someone new it’d be a statement that new management isn’t going to sit around and wait for the right pieces to fall into place.