The Panthers traded up for the No. 1 pick on Friday, becoming the first NFL team to do so since the Los Angeles Rams back in 2016 (for Jared Goff). The move ends what was thought to be weeks of uncertainty, at least through the early days of April.
Chicago gets itself out of the quarterback market and can spend a boatload of capital on more cornerback depth, a better, more aggressive front that can suit Matt Eberflus’s stunt-heavy defenses and, of course, a few more assets that can formulate a backfield of Bears offensive coordinator Luke Getsy’s dreams (while we’re not comping Justin Fields to Lamar Jackson, any quarterback with the ability to escape the pocket benefits from the presence of position-versatile pass catchers and blockers).
After only Kenny Pickett was taken in the first round last year, we’ll have something closer to the 2018 draft coming down the pike—Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Josh Allen, Josh Rosen, Lamar Jackson. There are a ton of team-specific preference players on the board (Will Levis, for example, played in a Kyle Shanahan offense in college and also a Sean McVay-type offense while at Kentucky). Now the only remaining question is whether Carolina made the move for the player we thought they did, or if there is another surprise remaining.
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WINNERS
Scott Fitterer: A few years back, I made the case for former Bears GM Ryan Pace to draft a second quarterback after Mitch Trubisky. My point was that we often make mistakes in life and do better the second time around when we have the information downloaded and calibrated. Fitterer, though, is on trade No. 3 for a potential franchise quarterback. The Panthers traded a second, fourth and sixth-round pick for Sam Darnold, a fifth-round pick for Baker Mayfield and now, two first-round picks, two second-round picks and D.J. Moore for a third crack at solving David Tepper’s search for a franchise passer. He is burning draft fuel like a 1990s Bronco with little repercussion (so far). But he is still here.
Ryan Poles: The Bears GM took the best deal on the table and gave his scouting staff a chance to recalibrate with a little more than a month to go before the draft. While the Bears didn’t field as much as the Titans did from the Rams in 2016, the Rams were shooting from a historically low draft spot and, thus, had to add a premium. The biggest sweetener here for Poles is the addition of Moore, a legitimate No. 1 wide receiver, who would potentially field a low first or high second-round pick from a team as is.
Justin Fields: This is as firm a statement of confidence as we’ve seen from a team to a quarterback in a similar position. The Bears dealt the No. 1 pick immediately after the combine and didn’t even go through Pro Day season, where they could have entertained the idea of picking Bryce Young or another top passer (at the expense of Fields’s sanity). This gives him a certain level of power within the franchise and a couple things he absolutely did not have at this time last year: a runway of patience, and one of the better weapon sets in the NFL.
Bryce Young: Presumably, the No. 1 pick (at least at this juncture, barring an unseen Will Levis tools-obsessed push), Young would fall into the very capable hands of Frank Reich, who, at one point, designed an offense that had Carson Wentz on the verge of an MVP season. While it’s always a bit of an uphill battle for quarterbacks whose franchises sacrifice major draft capital to get them—thus, leaving less draft capital to build around them—Young would walk into an offense that contains two solid tackles and some decent interior line play.
Will Levis: If there is another quarterback who could benefit from this move, I’d vote for the Kentucky product. As we mentioned in the introduction, Levis played for both Liam Coen (who then left to become the Rams offensive coordinator following the departure of Kevin O’Connell) and Rich Scangarello, who was Kyle Shanahan’s quarterbacks coach, as well as Vic Fangio’s offensive coordinator. The Panthers coaching staff features Thomas Brown, who was McVay’s former assistant head coach and run game coordinator. Reich also talked frequently about his desire to find a quarterback who could handle the rigors of the pocket. Levis has a frame to take hits, even if evaluators like the way Young can handle pressure, too.
Frank Reich: Reich inherited and almost immediately lost Andrew Luck in his first shot as a head coach. There is always a certain amount of pressure on a perceived QB whisperer when they make their first high-profile selection at the position (see: Shanahan and Trey Lance), but Reich clearly has the heft and support of ownership behind him. There’s less of an immediacy to game planning with Philip Rivers or Jacoby Brissett, but Young, if he is indeed the Panthers pick, isn’t going to come in like a true rookie. The Crimson Tide tossed a lot of their RPO scheme once it became clear how adept Young was at handling an NFL-style offense.
Josh McCown: Frank Reich’s quarterbacks coach, who figures to be on a fast track to an eventual head coaching position, gets another promotion boost here: the chance to flex his muscle with a rookie. I wrote about McCown’s process here—at the time he was, literally, a live translator between starter and coaching staff—back when he was with Sam Darnold and the Jets.
Jonathan Gannon: With the Bears out of the picture and the (theoretically, at least, quarterback-needy) Texans picking No. 2, the best defensive player in the draft falls to a Cardinals team that is threadbare on that side of the ball and is starting over with a defensive head coach.
LOSERS
The NFL: The Carolina Panthers and Chicago Bears struck a trade for the No. 1 pick on a Friday night heading into St. Patrick’s Day weekend, which is usually the type of space reserved for dumping a suspension or releasing the results of an internal investigation on some type of owner cryptocurrency theft. Someone is going to get an earful from 345 Park Avenue on timing. For goodness sakes, we have Cornell vs. Yale coming up (slaughter) and Christiaan Bezuidenhout is leading the Players Championship. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it …
Matt Rhule: Ultimately, Rhule’s advantage coming into the NFL was a knowledge of the modern collegiate landscape at a time when the league was adopting ideas at a faster level than before. This would have served him really well in Carolina’s current scenario, in which he had the chance to pick between three or four capable passers at No. 1. Rhule’s undoing was largely thanks to an inability to recruit a veteran quarterback or gamble whatever equity he had with the franchise on drafting one, which led the Panthers to sell off critical pieces toward the end of his tenure.
Draft eligible defensive players: While we all assumed this would happen eventually, there was a chance for defensive players to go No. 1 overall in consecutive seasons for the first time since 1991 and ’92, when Russell Maryland went to the Cowboys and Steve Emtman went to the Colts.
DJ Moore: I wonder, if you’re Moore, what you would rather. This year, he could either be the primary target for a No. 1 draft pick and eventually handcuff the team into re-working his extremely friendly contract, or be one of a few targets for Justin Fields, who did not have a single receiver with a target load over 50 this year (Cole Kmet led all Bears receivers with 50 catches). Moore falls in with Chase Claypool, Kmet and Darnell Mooney. An offense designed by Reich and former Rams assistant head coach Thomas Brown is on the table and it’s an intriguing opportunity to leave behind. In Los Angeles, Brown was part of a team that got a single, workhorse wide receiver open on almost every play, and nearly all of McVay’s assistants who have left to become head coaches elsewhere have uncovered similar success in feeding their primary targets. Cooper Kupp parlayed that role into a top-of-market extension. Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase are about to.
I just don’t know how much a player would enjoy being described as “overly affordable.” That is one of the best parts of the deal for Chicago. Moore unfortunately missed the tailwind of massive receiver contract extensions and is going to make about $1 million more than Hunter Renfrow per year. While he may have to work less for his open opportunities, is he going to get such a surplus that he remains relevant on the open market nearing age 30?
