Jeff Fisher has gone to a Super Bowl with highly picked D1-AA QB. Steve McNair.
But this year I would say the alternative is any of the other QBs in this draft because none of them are really stand out, can’t miss picks. Not that there’s ever a can’t miss pick, but there’s no Andrew Luck in this draft.
I haven’t dug into the draft quite as much as I have in years past (I still have time) but I’ve been tracking all the mock drafts and rumors about Bears prospect visits.
Bears Needs
**Offense - **The Bears are pointing up on offense - there’s not a lot of proven talent, but also not a ton of glaring holes either.
QB - Cutler and nothing else. I expect the Bears to draft a QB in the draft somewhere. Early in the offseason I had hopes that Wentz would be available at 11 and I’d have been in full support of getting him to challenge Cutler for a year or two. At this point, I’m not sure who I would look at in the 3rd or 4th round, but I bet Pace takes one.
RB - They lost Forte, but with Langford and Carey they have young talent and frankly Forte was overrated. I wouldn’t rule out Elliott at 11 for the Bears, and I’d probably convince myself to be excited, but I’m pretty heavily against drafting a RB early. I’ll have to watch some tape on Elliott to see if he’s as good as advertised. Count on us drafting a RB in the middle rounds. If it’s Derrick Henry I’m going to burn Halas Hall to the ground - fuck that noise.
WR - Jeffery is back with the franchise tag and I’m hoping they hold off on getting a long term deal done. I like the guy a lot, but these injuries are getting out of hand and most are non-contact injuries. Kevin White basically got the medical redshirt and I really liked him coming out. I’m excited to see what we have. Royal and Wilson give us additional depth and versatility and we have a litany of slot/return type guys filling out the roster. I won’t be shocked if the Bears grab another WR, especially if they don’t think a long term deal with Jeffery is a good idea, but I suspect they won’t. I did love what I saw out of Doctson and though Sheppard was a pretty interesting option further down the board.
TE - They traded away Bennett which I didn’t hate, but they simply didn’t get enough back in return. He’ll be impossible to replace and there isn’t a guy in the draft at TE that I’d spend a pick on. Glad they brought back Miller but they are probably going to be without a good matchup guy this year. This will be a prospect group I dig into more ahead of the draft just in case.
OL - This is probably the strongest the OL group has been in a decade, not that that’s saying much. They added Massie and moved Long back inside, which along with Grasu maturing and Slausson back healthy makes this a pretty sound group. They need a LT and if there’s a position that I think they’ll draft at #11 I’d probably put that as the highest probability. Tunsil will certainly be gone, but I wouldn’t rule out Stanley or Conklin slipping with all the movement at the top. I have some tape to watch here.
**Defense - **Pace has been pretty savvy in free agency and did a nice job shoring up the LB group so that we can focus on going BPA in the draft.
DL - I’m still adjusting to the 3-4 much like the Bears roster is. Will Sutton and Eddie Goldman both look like quality starters, though Sutton could be upgraded in this draft. They added Hicks from NE to replace Jarvis Jenkins who was pretty decent last season on a 1- year prove it deal. Depth is the real problem here and along with the LT spot it’s probably the odds on favorite for our 1st pick. DeForest Buckner has been a recent Mock pick for us and that’d be a fantastic outcome, I like him a lot. Jihad Ward is a guy I’d love to have in the 2nd or 3rd rounds. I don’t want any part of either Alabama guy
OLB - I really like the edge guys we have and don’t think we need to spend a high pick at this spot. Guys like Lawson, Spence and Ogbah have been mocked to the Bears and I don’t want any part of them, especially Lawson. Dodd entices me a little, but that’s admittedly based solely on the CFB Title game and he’s probably a 4-3 guy anyways. McPhee, Houston, Young, Acho and Washington are a solid rotation and I expect us to grab some depth in this draft late, I don’t see us adding a lot here and I don’t like the value prop at #11 unless Bosa slips.
ILB - What once was the weakest position is not possible one of the strongest. They let McClellin go which I have mixed feelings on, but they upgraded him in a huge way adding Trevathan and Freeman in free agency which pushes Jones and Timu to rotational roles. Jack, Ragland and Smith have all been mocked to the Bears and both Smith and Jack are interesting as injury/upside guys. I took Smith off my board, nerve damage is a deal breaker, but Jack could be very exciting and versatile. Ragland is another old school Alabama guy I wouldn’t touch. Further study is warranted.
DB - Still the weakest and scariest group on the team. Fuller is a nice young option, but I think he’s maxed out as a solid if unspectacular weak side/slot CB. Porter found the fountain of youth and was a leader on the team, but the wheels are bound to come off soon and even still he wasn’t dominating anyone. Rolle was hurt a lot but hopefully that was a fluke, still he’s on the downslope of his career. I really like what we have in Amos and there’s a few other depth guys with nice upside, but I still expect this position to be a key area of focus for us in the draft. Ramsey won’t fall to ##11 and I don’t like the value on either Hargreaves or Apple, so I expect us to attack this in the middle rounds.
Specialists - Not much to discuss here. We have a Punter and Kicker, and while Gould is overpaid, we have plenty of cap room and he’s not going anywhere. WE struggled badly in the return game and have signed a few options to hopefully shore up that role. I wouldn’t rule out drafting a guy with return chops, but I hope it’s not a high priority.
I was talking about Brady Quinn and Manziel. Your point is valid that the expense of trading to grab a QB in those cases was not in the same league as the other examples, but frankly there just aren’t many obvious “trade for a QB” examples.
Vick and Eli are probably better examples, and I’d argue that both were successful. Vick was a sensation until the off field shit dragged him down.
I would say that they need to be good enough to win a Super Bowl with. That doesn’t mean they need to be elite, or the main reason they win a Super Bowl, but they have to put the team in a position where they contend frequently.
If they are equivalent to Flacco, Eli, Rivers, Ryan, Romo I think that’s a win for that trade. Biggest debate is probably where you draw the line, does Ryan belong in that group? Does Stafford? Does Dalton?
I’d say if they are Tier 1 or Tier 2 QBs it’s a great investment. If they are Tier 3 (Stafford, Cutler, Bortles, Dalton, Smith), it’s probably a modest loss, if they are lower than that it’s a massive failure.
I think the data supports it, yeah. #1 overall QBs probably succeed/fail at a 1:2 rate, which is pretty shitty, but everywhere else is’s probably 1:30 at best. Remember how many mid-first round picks there have been at QB - Leinart, Manziel, Quinn, Manuel, Weeden, Ponder, Locker, Gabbert, Tebow!, Freeman, Campbell, Losman? That’s a garbage fire, and I’m not cherry picking at all that’s almost all of them outside of the top 5. The list of successful mid-first guys is really short, it’s basically Rodgers, Flacco, Big Ben and a couple of your favorites, Cutler and Tannehill. As a side note, it’s amazing how bad the QB taken from 2-5 have been, worse than from 6-32, and almost a 100% failure rate which doesn’t bode well for the Browns. If you ran the numbers from the 2nd and 3rd round, the ratio of Carrs and Wilsons to people you’ve already forgotten about would be really bad.
Small sample size.
And Luck wasn’t a clear cut #1, several people argued for RG3 over him. Both were much higher rated than Goff/Wentz, this is true, but he wasn’t a unanimous first overall like Newton was. I don’t think that matters that much either, neither Manning was clear cut either. Plenty of people felt strongly that Leaf and Rivers were better those years, they were in the minority, but it wasn’t clear cut. It certainly wasn’t clear cut in 2005 as you probably recall. It was clear cut when Russell, Bradford and Vick were drafted and we see how that worked out. It’s a nice narrative, but history doesn’t support the idea that having 1 clear cut alpha dog somehow is a barometer for success.
Weeden too…they traded up to get him too.
The Browns are a nice case study against the argument that letting QBs come to you instead of reaching for the #1 overall pick is a sounder strategy.
You could argue the Browns took the middle road which is the worst plan, trading assets for middling QBs instead of betting the farm for a stud or sitting back and building the rest of the roster.
Neither Wentz or Goff are Andrew Luck, but they absolutely stand out in this draft class. They are 2 rounds better than Lynch or Cook. It’s a giant gaping chasm from tier 1 to tier 2, which is exactly why they’ll probably go 1-2 this year.
I don’t get the Andrew Luck worship. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a very talented QB. But look at this comparison. QB2 has one more year in the league than QB1.
QB 1: Completion % - 58.1; TD/INT – 101/55; AVG YDS – 7.05; Rating (ESPN) – 85.0
QB 2: Completion % - 59.6; TD/INT – 117/64; AVG YDS – 7.55; Rating (ESPN) – 88.3
QB 1 is Luck, obviously, since I’m discussing him… and QB 2 is Cam Newton. Add to that:
Luck: Rushing YDS – 1101; Rushing TDS - 12
Newton: Rushing YDS – 3207; Rushing TDS - 43
I realize no one in this thread was comparing the two of them, but this talk that Luck would be worth giving up a boatload of picks for falls flat for me.
And QB2 was the league MVP last year. I would be pretty okay with a quarterback whose stats were comparable to the MVP’s.
Echoing RNATB, any team would love to give up a kings ransom for Newton. That Luck compares very similarly (minus the rushing) to a guy who just won the MVP is some pretty emphatic creds for Luck’s value.
Both Newton and Luck are both success stories at #1 overall. The Colts chose to let a injured Hall of Famer go so they could draft Luck. The Panthers almost certainly turned down offers as big as the ones offered by the Rams and Redskins in their respective years.
Wentz and Goff aren’t as good as those guys, if they were it’d be real interesting to see what the Titans would have done this year.
I think it’s instructive that the Rams chose to stick with Bradford when they had the chance to take RG3 and got a windfall in return, and that didn’t exactly pan out for them.
Apparently not… Panthers never had offer like Titans' to trade top pick in 2011 - ESPN - Carolina Panthers Blog- ESPN
Very interesting. Off-field stuff is a killer for a QB I guess. Wonder how big a factor the team actively “shopping” a pick is in the number of offers you get.
You have to ask where the Vikings would be today if they’d have made the Godfather offer to the Panthers that year…
It worked out quite well for the Giants.
That Luck’s passing numbers are comparable to Cam Newton is pretty damn high praise, if you ask me. I think Cam Newton is a spectacular QB.
But the reason I’m using Luck as the benchmark for a QB worth giving up a lot for is because he had more pre-draft hype than anyone except maybe Peyton Manning. Luck, at the time, was a sure-fire, can’t-miss #1 pick.
Throwing in 4th rounders to move up or down a few spots at the end of the first round isn’t at all what you were talking about with your post.
Which is the opposite point you were trying to make when you took a gratuitous swipe at the Browns.
Edit: I’m not offended about the swipe, by the way. They’re one of the worst organizations in sports and you can find all sorts of things to blame them for. I guess I’m just objecting to how wrong it is. You can’t just throw them on every list of mistakes teams have made.
Trading some late round picks to move up a bit here and there doesn’t qualify as trading assets - it’s done routinely and for all positions, it has nothing to do with the blockbuster trades we’re talking about. Their approach has never been “middle of the road”, they’ve simply tried to get by second+ tier prospects at the quarterback position and never failed.
The Browns are actually an example of a team that’s traded down over and over again, and been lauded for getting value on draft day, and having no results come from it. The results are a data point against trading down.
I’m actually kind of afraid to see it again this year. I’m dreading when they trade down in the first round and then take Lynch or Cook. That would be consistent with their past actions.
Ahh, ok, point taken.
Here we go. Browns trade with Eagles. They swapped 1st round picks.
Browns also get:
2016 3rd
2016 4th
2017 1st
2018 2nd
Eagles get:
2014 4th
I wasn’t aware you could trade draft picks from prior years.
Are the Iggles going to draft a quarterback? 
That’s what the opinion writers on nfl.com suggest.
Yeah, Browns make a great trade down for the 5th or 6th time in the last decade. Everyone is going to give them props for it, and yet, unless RG3 completely turns around, they’re going to be left without a QB a game. I was Goff or Bust this draft, so I’m not happy.