Mitch Trubisky made 13 starts at North Carolina, the fewest of any quarterback taken in the first round since 2006. If the Bears take a quarterback this month, he’s likely to be just as inexperienced.
Part 7 of a 10-part series previewing the NFL Draft and analyzing the Bears’ needs.
In public, Bears general manager Ryan Pace refuses to analyze exactly why he got the drafting of Mitch Trubisky so wrong.
In private, Pace and the rest of the team’s brain trust have conducted a postmortem on the 2017 No. 2 pick to try to avoid making the same mistake again. They certainly wondered if they took a quarterback with too small a college sample size; Trubisky made 13 starts at North Carolina, the fewest of any quarterback taken in the first round since 2006.
With a week-and-a-half left until this year’s draft, the Bears have to come to peace with an uncomfortable fact: if they take a quarterback, he’s likely to be just as inexperienced.
The Bears will be boxed out of taking the first three passers. The Jaguars will take Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, while the Jets seem likely to draft BYU’s Zach Wilson. The 49ers, who traded a fortune for the third pick, figure to choose between Ohio State’s Justin Fields and Alabama’s Mac Jones.
Jones has only 17 career starts. So does North Dakota State’s Trey Lance, who played only one game this season — a fall exhibition — before opting out of the FCS powerhouse’s coronavirus-dictated spring season.
Davis Mills will likely be the sixth quarterback taken — and the first picked in the second round. Knee injuries and the Pac-12’s late 2020 start limited the Stanford quarterback to 11 career college starts.
Typically, passers with such little experience fare poorly. In the last 15 years, only four first-round quarterbacks started fewer than 17 college games: Trubisky, Cam Newton, Dwayne Haskins and Mark Sanchez. All but Newton, the 2015 MVP, have been busts.
The Bears, then, seem stuck — unless they do something bold. And that might be folly, even with Pace and head coach Matt Nagy facing a win-or-else mandate.
Moving from No. 20 overall all the way up to the No. 4 pick — the Falcons are entertaining offers — would cost the Bears the next three years’ worth of first-round picks plus at least two second-rounders. For a cap-strapped team in need of cheap, young talent, that seems too steep a price for the draft’s fourth-best quarterback. If the last of the top five quarterbacks falls toward the teens, though, the Bears will find a trade more affordable — but it would still probably cost them first-round picks in 2021 and 2022.
The Bears’ quarterback hunt could instead carry over to Day 2 — and beyond. Neither Mills nor Texas A&M’s Kellen Mond would solve the Bears’ quarterback problem or keep them from pursuing veterans via trade.
The Jaguars’ Gardner Minshew, whom Bears quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo mentored in Jacksonville, could be available on draft night. He wouldn’t be the long-term answer, either, but would leave the Bears with enough draft capital to trade in case one hit the market later. Two star quarterbacks could change teams in the next year: the Texans’ Deshaun Watson, who is toxic until his sexual assault allegations are adjudicated, and the Seahawks’ Russell Wilson, for whom the Bears made a trade offer last month.
If they don’t fix the quarterback position soon, though, Nagy and Pace might not be around when either player becomes available.
QUARTERBACKS
Grading the Bears’ need: What’s higher than high? Celestial? A franchise that hasn’t had a star quarterback since the Pleistocene Epoch let Mitch Trubisky walk, made a trade offer for Russell Wilson that the Seahawks rejected and signed “QB1” Andy Dalton to a one-year, $10 million deal. They’ll add another passer during draft weekend, either via draft, trade or by signing an undrafted free agent.
On the roster: Andy Dalton and Nick Foles
The five best prospects: Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, BYU’s Zach Wilson, Ohio State’s Justin Fields, Alabama’s Mac Jones and North Dakota State’s Trey Lance.
Keep an eye on: The Patriots and Washington Football Team, who draft No. 15 and 19, respectively. Like the Bears, both teams signed placeholder veterans last month. Drafting No. 20, the Bears will have to vault past both teams via trade to get a shot at the fourth or fifth passer taken in the draft. If the Bears search for a quarterback in Round 2, they’ll have to contend with at least one of the two teams.
Close to home: Peyton Ramsey transferred to Northwestern from Indiana and was the main reason the Wildcats went from 3-9 in 2019 to the No. 10 team in the nation in the 2020 postseason Associated Press poll. Ramsey is under 6-foot-2 and turns 24 in October, two facts that hurt his chances as a prospect. He started all but four games the last three years of his career and was a team captain twice, though, and those traits could earn him a practice squad spot somewhere. He’s not expected to get drafted.
from Chicago Sun-Times - All https://ift.tt/3dxqqq2
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