INDIANAPOLIS — When top draft prospects enter the Bears’ interview suite this week at the NFL Scouting Combine, they’re greeted by darts and putt-putt golf. Bears position coaches challenge them to a quick game before getting down to film study and interviews during the 18-minute session.
General manager Ryan Poles and head coach Matt Eberflus came up with the games for one reason: they want to see exactly how competitive each player is, even if it’s with a putter in their hands. Competition, they figure, makes everyone better.
That applies to the Bears trading their No. 1 draft pick, too. The more teams that want to deal, the more Poles can command in return. There are plenty of candidates — six of the eight teams that draft immediately behind the Bears are unsettled at quarterback in 2023.
There are four quarterbacks expected to go in Round 1: Alabama’s Bryce Young, Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud, Kentucky’s Will Levis and Florida’s Anthony Richardson, probably in that order. The only way a team can ensure they get their choice of the four is to swap with Poles.
The Bears are open for business. Their preference is to trade the pick to a quarterback-needy team but not fall so far in the draft as to miss out on a blue-chip prospect. The further down the Bears trade, though, the more they can collect in future assets. Moving down one spot might yield them the Texans’ first-round pick and second round picks the next two years, while going all the way down to the Panthers at No. 9 could yield first–round picks in the next three drafts. They’ll have plenty of options in between.
Both sides have to decide whether a deal is worth it.
“If you have conviction on a guy, you go get him,” said Panthers GM Scott Fitterer. “It’s pretty simple that way. If you don’t know and you’re going to give all these resources to go up and get it, you’re hurting your team in the long run.
“You better be right. You better have conviction if you do move up. But when you do that, you’re all-in.”
Public bluffing
Publicly, teams spent this week trying to tamp down expectations they’d trade up to No. 1.
Colts general manager Chris Ballard did it with so much gusto that he left some in the league believing he absolutely plans to trade up. He was protesting too much.
“Let’s just say we stay at (Pick) 4, and I can just see the headlines,” he said, sarcastically. “But at the end of day, we got to believe in who we’re taking it, we’re going to win with him …
“It would be easy for us just to take [a quarterback] to get [the media] off our ass. But we got to be right.”
GM Terry Fontenot, whose Falcons pick eighth, said they would explore both the draft and free agency to solidify the position. Texans GM Nick Caserio claimed, with little believability, that he hadn’t given much thought to what the Bears would do when they draft one spot ahead of his team.
“We’re not necessarily worried about what other teams around us are doing,” he said. “You’re cognizant of that, but ultimately you have to be prepared to pick wherever you’re going to pick. … You can’t really get too caught up in what other teams are doing.”
The reason for the so much public bluffing is the sheer number of teams that could trade up. General managers will pretend to be disinterested until they’re not, even as they check in with Poles about trade parameters.
The Bears will be ready to listen. So will the Cardinals, who draft third and have a fortune promised to quarterback Kyler Murray.
“I’m open to hearing any conversation about anybody that’s willing to come up,” said first-year Cardinals GM Monti Ossenfort. “I think with that No. 3 pick, it’s an opportunity to add a player, it’s an opportunity to potentially get some calls on that pick.”
Coming soon?
The Seahawks (5th), Raiders (7th) Falcons (8th) and Panthers (9th) could sign a veteran starter when free agency begins in two weeks. Were those teams to trade up to draft a quarterback, they’d prefer to swing the deal before the start of free agency. Otherwise, they could be shut out at the position completely if they ignore veterans and three quarterbacks are drafted in the top four next month.
“That’s obviously one of the things you have to look at,” said Fitterer, whose starter, Sam Darnold, is headed for free agency. “Because if you if you want to go that veteran route, that’s going to happen a lot earlier [in the offseason] — and those guys are gone. That’s why we’re going to take this week to get all the answers that we need to get. We’ve talked to a lot of the young quarterbacks …
“I think the next two weeks are very important.”
That timing could benefit the Bears, too. Poles said that if trade proposals land the Bears both draft picks and veteran players, he’d be motivated to make a move in the next two weeks because it “gives you some clarity on what you want to do in the draft and free agency.”
Veteran options
The Seahawks have talked openly about re-signing the resurgent Geno Smith to start, but coach Pete Carroll left open the possibility they’d draft a quarterback.
“We are totally connected to the quarterbacks that are coming out. …” he said. “This is a really huge opportunity for us. It’s a rare opportunity. We’ve been drafting in the low 20s for such a long time you just don’t get the chance at these guys. We are deeply involved with all that.”
The underwhelming free-agent class features Derek Carr, Jimmy Garoppolo, Daniel Jones, Smith and — if the Ravens decide not to franchise tag him — star Lamar Jackson. Ravens GM Eric DeCosta said this week he hopes to negotiate a new contract with Jackson before the franchise tag deadline March 7.
Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers could join the group should he force a trade. The team wants to know Rodgers’ intentions in the next two weeks.
The Panthers met with Carr this week at the Combine. Fitterer, though, said it’s cheaper and more sustainable to draft and develop a quarterback than pay a veteran.
“I think in an ideal world you always want to draft the quarterback — draft, develop and then have that guy here for five, 10 years,” Fitterer said. “You want to have that consistency.
“It helps for many different reasons. The continuity of your roster, for salary cap reasons. There’s so many benefits to drafting and developing. That is the right route to go. We’ll see if we can get in a position where we get one of the guys we like.”
Ballard said he’d have to fall in love with one of the quarterbacks to move to No. 1.
“That we were just convicted that this is no-freakin’-doubt the guy,” he said.
If he falls in love with one player, the Bears will be waiting. Unless someone else does first.
