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The Chicago Bears might’ve addressed their quarterback need with the addition of veteran Andy Dalton in free agency, but the indication is that they’re going to target a young quarterback in the NFL draft.
While Chicago has a first-round pick for the first time in three years, there’s a belief that the top-five quarterbacks in the draft will be done before the 20th overall pick rolls around — even with the Carolina Panthers trading for Sam Darnold.
But there are several Day 2 options that will be available for the Bears, including Texas A&M’s Kellen Mond and Florida’s Kyle Trask.
Bears head coach Matt Nagy said the biggest challenge during this pre-draft process has been the lack of a Scouting Combine, which helps teams. better evaluate players. Still, Nagy likes what he’s seen from this class of quarterbacks.
“It is more difficult [to evaluate these quarterbacks] because you just don’t have the luxury of being at the combine and seeing these guys throw and see the ball come out of their hands and their footwork,” Nagy said, via ESPN.com. “You get to see every one of those guys from the top guy to the bottom guy. Right now you just don’t have the luxury of doing that.
“As everybody knows, we’ve been to a few pro days with some of these quarterbacks and it definitely helps, but there is only so many of those you can do and see. What’s fair is every other team is doing the same thing. Ryan [Pace] and I are super excited about going through that evaluation process together and how we do it. It’s a challenge, but we look forward to it. There are a lot of good quarterbacks in this draft class.”
At this point it feels inevitable that Chicago will draft a quarterback. The only question is whether they go for a second-day prospect or make a splash and trade up for a shot at one of the top-five quarterbacks.
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