When the Chicago Bears landed the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NFL draft, it was a matter of when they were going to trade it to a team looking to position themselves for their top quarterback.
Bears general manager Ryan Poles made a blockbuster trade with the Carolina Panthers, sending the first overall pick in exchange for two first-rounders, two second-rounders and wide receiver DJ Moore. And it happened earlier than many expected — ahead of the start of free agency.
NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah addressed the Bears’ trade during his pre-draft conference call. He was asked if Poles would’ve been better off waiting to trade the top pick. But he believes Chicago made the right decision.
“You never know how it’s going to shake out once everybody does all their homework and gets to the finish line on the quarterback evaluations,” Jeremiah said. “I would say that it feels like, and the teams I’ve talked to, there’s a clear-cut No. 1. When that happens, you end up getting a pretty good price.
“Even that being said, with the haul they got when you include the player that they got in D.J. Moore, I don’t know that they would have been able to do better. I think that was smart on his part. He got a deal he liked. He was comfortable with it, and he wasn’t going to wait to see if there was anything better out there and maybe miss out on that opportunity.
“So I thought it was smart to go to 9. It made the most sense. I love the return they got, and the crazy thing about it is I think as we’re a week out, I think never would have thought this when they made that trade, but they might be sitting there with more quarterbacks still on the board when they pick at 9 and might be faced with another opportunity to continue to add more picks. I really thought that was the smart move that they made.”
As Jeremiah indicated, the Bears are in a position where they could trade back a second time in the first round. ESPN’s Adam Schefter hinted that we could see a later run on quarterbacks in the top 10, which could make that No. 9 pick a hot commodity for quarterback-needy teams outside the top 10.
