The Carolina Panthers curse is officially over, which means maybe now they can end a seven-year streak of losing seasons. The Panthers gave away a king’s ransom to draft Bryce Young. It hasn’t worked out to this point, but maybe the Chicago Bears exhausting their final pick as part of that trade can end the horror.
The Bears used the 39th pick on Friday to draft Luther Burden III to fortify an offense that has a litany of weapons at its disposal; just like Ben Johnson would have liked. Getting Caleb Williams as much help as possible was the goal for Johnson when he took the job.
Panthers-Bears 2023 blockbuster trade is now final.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 25, 2025
Bears receive:
🏈 WR DJ Moore
🏈 2023 first-round pick (OT Darnell Wright)
🏈 2023 second-round pick (CB Tyrique Stevenson)
🏈 2024 first-round pick (QB Caleb Williams)
🏈 2025 second-round pick (WR Luther Burden)
Panthers…
Adding Burden’s explosion was key. Adding another weapon for Williams was key. The Bears couldn’t have utilized that trade haul any better than they did.
The Chicago Bears adding offensive weapons for Caleb Williams should have the rest of the NFC North on alert
The most dangerous thing to happen in the NFL was for Ben Johnson to link up with Caleb Williams and have the freedom to add every offensive weapon he could to build a behemoth offense in the Windy City.
What makes the Burden pick such a good pickup is his play style is probably similar to Amon-Ra St. Brown. St. Brown became a slot savant for the Lions under Johnson when he was the offensive coordinator. Look for Burden to grow into that role in Chicago.
They now have DJ Moore and Rome Odunze on the outside with Burden in the slot. This is a lethal offense in the making. The Bears have the Panthers to thank for that. Chicago decided to ride it out with Justin Field for one more year and it set up the future.
Carolina got Bryce Young with the No. 1 overall pick and he finally looked like he was turning the page at the end of last season. They got him some help in Tetairoa McMillan. They obviously would have liked to have some of those picks they gave the Bears, but now they don’t want to worry about that anymore.
Time will tell if it was worth it. Will the Panthers be able to live with themselves if they’re still rebuilding while the Bears are contending in the NFC? They could regret giving up what they did for Young if he doesn’t have a Cam Newton trajectory. Meanwhile the Bears will have to turn lemons into lemonade with the weapons they put around Williams.