The Chicago Bears are sitting in a prime position atop the 2023 NFL draft, where general manager Ryan Poles has the resources to retool the roster this offseason.
There should be no shortage of teams looking to move up to the first overall pick, especially considering the intriguing group of quarterbacks including Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud and Will Levis.
NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah held a press conference with the media ahead of the NFL Combine, where he talked about a variety of subjects. One of the hot topics was what the Bears should do sitting at No. 1 in the draft.
The expectation is Poles will look to trade back from first overall and acquire additional draft capital. Two of those potential trade partners are the Texans and Colts, who would put Chicago in a position to draft Georgia defensive tackle Jalen Carter or Alabama edge rusher Will Anderson in the top four, even after trading back.
But Jeremiah believes it might actually be in the Bears’ best benefit to trade back further because the haul of picks would be greater.
“You know, look, it would be hard to trade away from those top two defensive players, because I think they’re really, really good,” Jeremiah said. “But if you could just get just the sheer haul of picks that could serve you well into the future, I think I would go that route and probably would switch me from the defensive side to the offensive side with that first pick that they would be going after there.”
Jeremiah believes trading out of Carter or Anderson should shift the focus for Chicago from defense to offense. If that’s the case, Jeremiah thinks the Bears need to give quarterback Justin Fields some help up front, and there’s a name that stands out to him.
“I would probably go back to the same guy I just talked about, would be (Northwestern offensive tackle Peter) Skoronski,” Jeremiah said. “As bad as the Bears defense is, you’ve got to give Justin Fields some help here going forward.
“If they traded all the way down to 9, I would think they’re probably trading themselves into their choice, dealer’s choice of offensive linemen at that point in time.”
Granted, how the Bears address their abundance of needs in free agency could dictate exactly what they do with their first-round pick.
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