It’s impressive sometimes how quickly you can go from “what are you doing?” to “what, you are doing it!” The Chicago Bears stepped into free agency with the third most available cap space in the NFL, and up until 9:30 PM on Thursday, the results were….underwhelming? Just okay? Good for depth? For the most part, the signings up this point have been moves a team that believes it is close to a championship make. Depth moves in the middle to bottom of the roster. Building strong special teams. Overpaying for a running back they didn’t need.
Generally, those are moves that teams make when they know they are close to a championship level and are safeguarding themselves up and down the roster against injury. Then the Bears traded for future Wide Receiver Keenan Allen. The Los Angeles Chargers came to Allen asking him to take a pay cut. He is due to make 18 million with a cap hit of 23 million in 2024, the final season of his contract. Allen said no. The Chargers proceeded to jettison him to the Bears for nothing more than a 4th round pick.
Allen will be replacing Darnell Mooney in the Bears starting lineup. Mooney, if you remember, is best known for dropping a hail mary that would have won the Bears the game against the Browns…and pretty much nothing else. In 2023, with DJ Moore taking up the focus as the number one receiver in the offense, Mooney managed only 31 receptions for 414 yards and one touchdown. The Atlanta Falcons, who it seem have no grasp on how money works, gave Mooney 13 million per year.
For all of the hope of what Mooney could be, Keenan Allen has been for his career. Allen has had at least 100 receptions in four of his past five seasons. If you are a fantasy football fan, you are very aware of Allen as the guy who, starting in the third week of every season, has a “Q” next to his name with a little news bit that he isn’t practicing all week. Allen hasn’t played an entire season without missing a game since 2019. He is also 31, and might be looking for a contract extension. Missing time hasn’t seemed to affect his productivity, though. This is a player who, when he is in the game, is giving you big plays over and over. He has only averaged under 10 yards per reception once in his career, when he averaged 9.9 yards.
I mentioned the salary cap for a reason: because the Bears didn’t go all out trying to bring in one splash player via free agency, they allowed themselves plenty of cap space to not only make a trade for Allen, but give him a 2-3 year extension with most of the money front loaded to this season so he isn’t as big of a cap hit in future seasons.
And they can keep doing this!
They still have cap space available and have the ability to take on another veteran to help this team. Perhaps someone to fortify the defensive line. They will struggle to do this with the draft, as the trades for Allen and Monteze Sweat at the trade deadline last season has left general manager Ryan Poles with only four draft picks in the 2024 NFL draft in late April.
Here is the thing, though. Two of those picks are in the top 10, including the first and ninth pick. Poles has the opportunity to go in numerous different directions to finish building this team. Let’s look at a few:
Draft Caleb Williams First, Draft Best Player Available at Nine
This would be considered the “stand pat” methodology and also the most likely move for the team. While the term “generational” quarterback gets thrown around far too often, Williams is as high end of a quarterback prospect that has entered the NFL in a few years. The former USC quarterback has his share of detractors, but most of the issue seems to be fatigue for the person rather than his actual ability. Caleb has had every possible rumor attached to him since the Panthers clinched the number one pick for the Bears: prima donna, bad teammate, doesn’t want to play for Chicago, wants partial ownership of team as part of contract, isn’t allowed to play in the NFL due to his apparel sponsorship, his team never won anything in college, etc.
Most of this stuff isn’t even true. He’s not a prima donna, he is the first real product of college players getting to be paid for sponsorship deals. Not a single teammate has said he was anything but supportive. Williams has said publicly he is happy to play for the Bears. The ownership thing is a rehashed story that keeps getting re-aggregated by idiots even though it was debunked months ago. The apparel thing is truly the stupidest thing ever. His team didn’t win anything while he was at USC, but he did drag a bad team up and down the field for two years, earning a Heisman Trophy in 2022.
He is the best player in the draft. He is a potential franchise altering quarterback. That’s why the Bears could get a kings ransom for the first pick. An absolutely unprecedented amount of picks…
Scenario Two: Trade the Number One Pick to the Commanders for the Second Pick, the 36th Pick, and a First Round Pick Next Year, and draft Drake Maye or Jayden Daniels
Lets say the Bears want to pull a Trubisky, part two. Much like 2017, they could bypass drafting the best quarterback in the draft to draft either a raw but hyper talented SEC quarterback, or a quarterback from North Carolina. This is probably the absolute worst of all scenarios and it’s mostly pointed out by people who are hellbent against Williams, but also don’t want to keep Justin Fields. This entire scenario has big “The boat is a boat, but the box could be anything, even a boat” energy.
I won’t spend more time on this scenario because the thought of it makes me want to pull what is left of my hair out, so let’s use this as the baseline for a better scenario.
Scenario Three: Trade the Number One Pick to Washington for the 2nd Pick, 36th Pick, and a 1st Round Pick Next Year. Trade the 2nd Pick to either the Giants, Raiders, or Broncos for an Absolute Draft Pick Haul. Ride with Justin Fields as Quarterback.
In this scenario, the Bears get Washington’s first round pick next year and reclaim a second round pick this year to move back one spot. Then, they could trade down to Six, where the New York Giants could give a similar offer, with possibly some more late picks. This would give the Bears two additional first round picks, along with their own next year. It would also get them two second round picks in this year’s draft when they were previously walking into the draft with none. All of this would be simply to move from one to six.
For the Broncos or Raiders to move all the way up to two, they would have to give up much, much more due to the fact that they are drafting at 12 and 13, respectively. To move up to two, they would have to give up their first round pick this year, their second round pick this year, their first round pick next year, and their first round pick in 2026. The Bears would guarantee themselves multiple first round picks for several seasons, along with picking up extra picks in this year’s draft.
At six, they could draft the best offensive lineman available and at nine, they could draft the best defensive end available. Then they would roll the dice with Justin Fields at quarterback in 2024. This seems to be one of discussions that causes the greatest divide among Chicago sports fans: Can the Bears win with Justin? Those in the yes camp would look at every move up to this point and say “Justin has never had this many weapons. He needs a chance to operate in a competent offensive game plan with quality players.”
Those on the other side point to the crippling turnovers that Fields is responsible for late in games isn’t something that will just randomly get better when surrounded with different people. They also note that no quarterback that runs as much as Fields has ever held up long term as an NFL QB.
Justin Fields is only on the hook for a six million dollar cap hit this season. If this scenario plays out and Fields is bad, you can make a run at a quarterback in next year’s draft. You would have the Commanders’ pick (a team that is traditionally terrible) and the first round pick of either the Giants, Broncos, or Raiders. None of these teams represent anything resembling a slam dunk to make a deep playoff run and cause the pick to fall into the 20’s.
There is a way to thread the needle on this, and it could be perhaps the most interesting non-Caleb Williams move the Bears could make.
Scenario Three-B: Trade the Number One Pick to Washington for the 2nd Pick, 36th Pick, and a 1st Round Pick Next Year. Trade the 2nd Pick to the Raiders for the 12th pick and 44th pick in the 2024 draft, their first and second round picks in next year’s draft, and their first round pick in the 2026 draft. Draft Alabama edge rusher Dallas Turner at 9, and draft Washington quarterback Michael Penix at 12. Use the 36th and 44th picks on the best defensive tackle and wide receiver available. Let Justin Fields start the 2024 season. Let Penix develop slowly behind him.
I’m probably in the minority here, but I believe that Michael Penix is the second best quarterback in the draft this season behind Caleb Williams. I like Jayden Daniels, but I also feel that he is similar enough to Justin Fields’ playing style, that you just keep Fields in a “devil you know versus the devil you don’t” situation. Drake Maye looks fine if you are just watching a highlight package on YouTube, but he doesn’t read his progressions at a high level yet, and I got a Zach Wilson “gets happy feet when the box starts to collapse” kind of vibe from him. JJ McCarthy is literally just the 2024 version of Mac Jones. Bo Nix is 40 years old.
Michael Penix has an absolute cannon for an arm but probably needs some time before he could step into an NFL offense. If you are drafting someone at one or two to be quarterback, the expectation is that they are ready to play Game one. If you are drafting a quarterback at 12, you are buying yourself some time to let that quarterback develop, especially when you have a quarterback already in place in a contract year who has familiarity with a lot of the parts of the offense that matter.
Plus, if Fields goes off with all of the new pieces around him, you are only on the hook with him for 20.2 million in 2025, still a low end number for a quarterback, and you let Penix continue to develop as a backup in the same way that the Packers brought along Jordan Love slowly while Aaron Rodgers developed CTE in real time.
No matter what the Bears do moving forward, they find themselves as the most interesting and most talked about team in the NFL right now. When it comes to the draft, they hold all of the cards. They can hold tight with their picks, draft the best quarterback and best player at nine, or they can set off one of the great bidding wars that the NFL has seen.
Fancy Boys Club 