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A little over a week ago, Bears GM Ryan Poles sat alongside his coach, Matt Eberflus, and emphasized that he was in no rush to move the No. 1 pick—and that someone would have to pay a premium to get him to move off his spot.
Six days later, that premium came.
On Friday night, Chicago moved the first pick in April’s NFL draft to Carolina for a package made up of the ninth and 61st picks, a first-round pick in 2024, a second-round selection in ’25 and a star receiver with three 1,100-yard seasons under his belt in DJ Moore. And he did all of this after he’d preached patience.
Obviously, that return was a huge part of getting the deal done. But so, too, was the preparation of the Panthers for the opportunity, the Bears’ decisiveness on their price, and the growing rapport between two of the NFL’s newer general managers.
This morning, we’ve got the blow-by-blow on how all of that came together …
• The Panthers’ work in the fall wasn’t over the top, but it was thorough on the quarterbacks. The scouts were out, and the position was circled for them, obviously, with both Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold in contract years. GM Scott Fitterer’s exposure to the top guys was limited: He saw Will Levis and Hendon Hooker play against each other in the Kentucky-Tennessee game (ahead of the Panthers’ Halloween weekend game in Atlanta), he saw Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud play against Maryland (the day before Carolina played in Baltimore).
• That Carolina could be picking in the top 10 crystallized around that game against the Ravens, which dropped the Panthers to 3–8. Early draft meetings started soon thereafter, and that’s when the discussion on strategy began. The front office didn’t think the team was far off, and, with a little luck, wouldn’t be drafting so high, in striking distance of the top of the board, anytime soon. Also, the feeling was the roster didn’t have a ton of needs—the team could use a tight end, maybe another receiver. That balance, the brass thought, plus the haul that came for Christian McCaffrey, would give the team flexibility to get aggressive.
• Meanwhile, as the Bears saw it, Justin Fields had done plenty to warrant another year as the starting quarterback. The fact that they saw a group of seven players in the first tier of the draft class gave Chicago a chance to move further down in the top 10 (or maybe trade down twice, to get a blue-chip player) and work to surround Fields with a better cast, both to amplify him as a player and also figure out his ceiling as a quarterback.
• Fitterer, assistant GM Dan Morgan and the scouts went to work on the quarterbacks’ tape when the season ended, and then had new coach Frank Reich, offensive coordinator Thomas Brown and quarterbacks coach Josh McCown dive in with them once the staff was assembled. By the time they packed up for the combine, logically, they’d have to get to a comfortable level with at least a couple of the quarterbacks to justify having real discussions about moving to the top of the draft.
• The Panthers got there, and Reich was a big-time resource in helping find the way—his ability to see the tape through a quarterback’s eyes helped the front office get a cleaner read on Stroud, Levis, Bryce Young and Anthony Richardson, as well as a better feel for how each quarterback moved, felt the game and saw the field. Then, and now, the Panthers got conviction on a couple of the quarterbacks. They’ll keep working on all four and try to figure out whether there’s another one they gain a similar strong feeling for.
• Poles got to Indy open to moving the pick but not feeling an urgency to do it. The only thing, as Chicago saw it, that would create such urgency would be if a veteran player was involved. In that case, the Bears would want to do the deal before the start of free agency (4 p.m ET March 15), because the player coming back in the trade could affect how they use the massive amount of cap space they’ll enter the new league year.
• Also, Poles, who’d normally stay at the JW Marriott during combine week, stayed at another hotel down Maryland Street, the Hyatt Regency, this year. The reason? The JW Marriott is a crossroads for NFL business during combine week, and, given what the Bears were trying to accomplish, it made sense to stay more out of the way of all of the noise of combine week.
• Poles and Fitterer met first in Poles’s room at the Hyatt, and again later at Lucas Oil Stadium, more informally, after running into each other before prospect workouts. The Panthers showed motivation to get something done by being direct—going early would give Carolina a chance to fully vet every quarterback, and do it out in the open—but Fitterer also told Poles he could be patient, if that’s what it took. The two resolved to keep the lines of communication open, with both talking to other teams about trades as well.
• The Bears talked to Houston about dropping from No. 1 to No. 2, but it was a little unclear whether the Texans were ready to pull the trigger. (The idea appealed to the Bears because of the idea that they could trade down twice.) One other team seemed serious about coming up, with a fourth team also throwing its hat in late—but talks with the Panthers were advancing faster than with the other three.
• The Panthers wanted to explore moving into the top five in general, but they didn’t talk to the Texans or Colts, figuring both were taking quarterbacks, and all that calling them would do is alert them to how serious Carolina was about doing the deal early. Talks with the Cardinals about going up to No. 3 gave the Panthers another option. The worry with pursuing Seattle’s pick at No. 5 (Fitterer worked for the Seahawks for 20 years, so he certainly could negotiate with GM John Schneider) was that, after the quarterbacks checked boxes at the combine, it could end up only necessitating a second move up.
• During the week, big-money deals coming in for Daniel Jones in New York and Derek Carr in New Orleans, plus the potential fully guaranteed outlay of a Lamar Jackson deal more or less cemented the Panthers’ plan to go up for a quarterback in the draft, rather than find a veteran at the position in free agency. The Panthers also figured seeing where the market was going would motivate other teams to trade into the top three, for talented, cost-controlled options at the position. So it was time to go.
• In the end, the price to go up to Arizona’s spot at No. 3 was close enough to Chicago’s price at No. 1 for the Panthers to focus on getting the first pick. Poles’s stated price was three first-round picks, if the deal was going to be done early. The Panthers knew it might end up being more than that for them specifically, since they’d be coming up eight spots, five more than Indianapolis and seven more than Houston.
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• That’s where the teams got creative: The Bears and Panthers agreed that 25-year-old receiver DJ Moore, under contract at $52.265 million for the next three years (an average per year less than what Christian Kirk or Kenny Golladay got on the open market) was equal to the third first-round pick in a potential trade (that would be the 2025 pick). So Moore was packaged with the ninth and 61st picks (the 61st was the highest of the picks the Panthers got for McCaffrey), a ‘24 first-rounder and a ‘25 second-rounder.
• For what it’s worth, rumblings I’d heard were that the price could wind up being two first-rounders and two second-rounders for teams in the top five. If you see it that way, Moore was the premium for the Bears going down to No. 9, giving up the idea of the double trade and doing the deal early.
• The benefit now for the Bears is they’ll work with over $70 million they have in cap space for free agency knowing they have Moore, Chase Claypool and Darnell Mooney at receiver, plus three picks in the first two rounds, starting at ninth. For the Panthers, they now control what happens with the quarterbacks and could even move a spot or two back and get one depending on how their meetings go. I’d expect Fitterer, Morgan, Reich, Brown and McCown (and maybe even an owner) to be traveling together a bunch to see these players in the coming weeks.
• So where are the Panthers with the quarterbacks? They’re good with the film evaluation part of the process, though they’ll still do more. Now, it’ll be about finding out who each player is, how he processes and what makes him tick as a person. Carolina met with the top guys at the combine, but that’s just a jumping-off point for what’s coming. The Panthers came out of the trade with six picks in April’s draft: the No. 1 pick, their own second-rounder (39th), the Niners’ third (93rd), two fourths (114th, 132nd) and a fifth (145th).
• The Bears will go forward with a revamped receiver group and a ton of resources to rework the offensive line, with right tackle options there in free agency (Mike McGlinchey, Jawaan Taylor) and top-end left tackle prospects likely available at No. 9 (Peter Skoronski, Paris Johnson Jr.). That should give Chicago enough to, as was its goal, both amplify Fields and get answers on where his ceiling as an NFL quarterback is, with the all-important decisions on his fifth-year option and a potential extension looming in the spring of 2024.
And, really, that’s what getting the deal done early was about: planning.
Now, Fitterer can plan for the Panthers, and Poles can plan for the Bears. And other teams in the top 10 have to adjust to a landscape that was radically altered Friday night, way before most people thought it would be.
