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The sport that never really ends. The NFL season really does feel like a year-round experience, and that’s not necessarily a reference to the schedule changes. More so how this week’s Combine is yet another important date for everyone, including the Chicago Bears.
The Chicago Bears have such a critical week ahead of them. While that does include scouting out the best players in the “Underwear Olympics”, it also involves discussions with agents about pending free agents and the situation about how the team will tackle their quarterback room. The latter is a mortal lock be something that comes up in Ryan Pace’s combine interviews and if his faith in Mitchell Trubisky is wavering.
We can delve into free agents the team should look to keep or re-sign or discuss in length about what the quarterback room should look like this fall. But we’ll shelf that for the time being. Bear with me (no pun intended) and assume/observe the following in my particular scenario:
- The Bears sign or trade for an established veteran option at quarterback. While this isn’t the shock of the century, there will be an extremely rare surplus of quarterbacks on the market in both draft and free agency. After the bigger dominos like Tom Brady, Ryan Tannehill, and Dak Prescott fall, the secondary market will light up in a big way. While it’s not a fail-proof plan, Ryan Pace has a golden opportunity to right the ship.
- Fixing the tight end position is not a “draft/sign one guy and he solves everything” ordeal. This is going to be a group effort and adding Demetrius Harris is going to be one of several moves towards the goal of shoring up the position. Therefore, we shall assume Chicago will land one of Eric Ebron, Hunter Henry, Tyler Eifert, or any of the bargain veterans who are going to probably need to do a one-year prove-it deal.
- As much as Pace loves trading around the draft, this is probably the first year where he’s going to need to be laissez-faire this time around. He has pushed his chips to the center of the pot time after time, betting on this roster and coaching staff over the last few years and the results have been mixed. Getting guys you really love or are high on are important and getting “your guy” is sometimes praised. But when the player does not pan out, you will unavoidably face backlash. So you will see zero trades here because it’s just not feasible with their current capital. A trade down is more likely to come draft week.
After the Combine, I’m sure a lot of what I write won’t be nearly as relevant and I fathom that we’ll all be so knee-deep in quarterback hand sizes or the time a lineman runs the 40 (or God forbid we get another D.K. Metcalf vs. “The Vaunted Three-Cone” debate redux). So let’s just get down to brass tacks.
Eight draft picks, eight more opportunities to put the Bears back into title contention. Let’s rock.