To say the Bears’ performance this season has been disappointing would be a bit of an understatement. If we travel back in time to the preseason, there were a lot of very smart people saying the Bears have one of the most talented rosters in football. It wasn’t crazy to think Chicago would take their momentum from last year and try and make a Super Bowl run.
That obviously hasn’t happened. Mitch Trubisky has regressed to the point where it wouldn’t be shocking if he lost his job for the rest of the season to career backup Chase Daniel. Matt Nagy is getting ripped by everyone who has a Twitter account and lives in the greater Chicago area. Remember, Nagy won Coach of the Year last season and now people are calling for his firing for how’s he handled Trubisky and the team this season. Even the defense has been kind of disappointing — although a regression was to be expected. Khalil Mack may be playing alright, but he’s not putting up numbers. Here’s the bad part — and Bears fans may not want to continue — there may be no end in sight. Chicago could be bad for a while.
The first reason is obvious: teams simply can’t miss when they draft a quarterback high in the draft. Ryan Pace didn’t just miss by a little though.
With the caveat that hindsight draft analysis is charlatan analysis …
I just wanted to reinforce that NFL Exec of the Year Ryan Pace, GM of the #Bears, traded up — emphasis on *traded up* — to draft Mitch Trubisky over Deshaun Watson & Patrick Mahomes.
NFL Exec of the Year.
— Evan Silva (@evansilva) September 6, 2019
Silva has hated the Bears trade up from the moment it happened, but that’s because he believes in having as much draft capital as possible. Let’s talk about that draft capital.
Last year, everyone was keen to make fun of Jon Gruden when he complained about the Raiders not having a pass rush. After all, he did just trade Khalil Mack to the Bears and Mack was running roughshod over every offensive line on his way to the quarterback. It would be an extremely hot take to say the Bears shouldn’t have traded for Mack, but Silva — and a lot of folks who back analytics — would criticize Ryan Pace for not caring much about draft picks.
That’s the real problem. The Bears traded picks to move up for Trubisky which actually hurts them twice since Trubisky currently isn’t any good and they traded picks that could have contributed to the team to get him. The future is even more bleak. The Bears simply don’t have any picks to restock the offensive line or find a quarterback to make up for the Trubisky mistake. They don’t have a first or third-round pick in the 2020 draft due to Mack trade. They don’t have a fourth-round pick because it’s either going to New England or Baltimore. They have a ton of fifth-round picks which is nice if you want to hope and pray that end of the roster guys can contribute. At least they have most of their picks in 2021.
It isn’t like teams are going to give picks away. The Bears don’t have anyone where teams would be willing to give up anything in the top half of the draft. Chicago could trade for Cam Newton, but that would contribute to their lack of draft capital. Plus, imagine if Newton never regains his form. The Bears would be in a worse spot than they are now.
There’s no quick answer for the Bears. They could theoretically try and pry Andy Dalton away from the Bengals. When Andy Dalton is the answer, that’s not good. They could trade for Cam Newton, but they don’t have the picks to do so. They could hope Newton gets cut, but would he want to go to the Bears after seeing the current issues on their team? There’s no simple answer. There’s no quick fix. That’s a real sudden change for a team hoping to make the Super Bowl this year.