Chicago Bears: The Last Major Draft Trade Down Proved Fruitful

It looks like for the fourth-straight season the Chicago Bears are going to use a top 10 pick in the upcoming NFL draft. That is unless they move.

GM Ryan Pace has already proven himself to be a man of action. In three drafts thus far he hasn’t stayed put in the 1st round for two of them. In 2016 he moved up from #11 to #9 in order to select Leonard Floyd out of Georgia. A year later he went from #3 to #2 for Mitch Trubisky of North Carolina. So it’s obvious that Pace has no fear about moving up in the 1st round. The question most fans have is whether he is the type to consider falling back.

Moving down in a draft is always a risky proposition. While it does lead to acquiring more picks, it also robs a team of an opportunity to get one of the top-rated prospects on the board. Thus it takes a lot of faith in the scouting department and front office to find a quality player if this were done. The Cleveland Browns have taught this lesson the hard way. Despite stockpiling a mountain of picks the past couple years they have one win in the past two seasons.

Pace comes from the school of Mickey Loomis in New Orleans. He did not conduct a single trade back in the 1st round of a draft until last year in 2017. For the record, he’s been GM there since 2002. It’s not something he’s wild about doing. Still, with his QB locked up, Pace has more flexibility than he has in the past. Could this mean he’s eyeing a chance to move back?

The 2003 draft proved the ups and down of moving back for Bears

As a franchise, the Bears are not known for moving back in the 1st round often. In fact, the last time they did so was way back in 2003. This was when Jerry Angelo was in his third season as GM and Dick Jauron was still the head coach. Chicago held the #4 overall pick. It’s unclear whether they intended to move back at first but Angelo soon got an offer he couldn’t refuse, which was two 1st rounders and a 4th from the New York Jets. Thus the decision to move down was made. After another minor slip back from #13 to #14 with the New England Patriots for a 6th rounder, the Bears had 12 picks in total, adding in three compensatory selections.

They certainly put it to good use.

Things didn’t start well as both their 1st rounders ended up being duds in defensive end Michael Haynes and quarterback Rex Grossman. However, with the additional picks, Angelo was allowed to be a little more aggressive in terms of where he went after his talent. That might explain why he was willing to a spend a 2nd rounder on a tall, skinny kid from Louisiana-Lafayette named Charles Tillman. A round later they gambled again on a young man named Lance Briggs out of Arizona.

At that point, Briggs was projected as an inside linebacker. It was felt he might be too undersized for his traditional strong side role in college. Then there was the fact Arizona wasn’t known for producing quality front seven defenders aside from one or two exceptions dating back decades. Still, the Bears felt he might be a perfect fit as a weakside linebacker and there was no doubt he had playmaking skill. Those two players joined Brian Urlacher to form the core of one of the best defenses the franchise has ever produced.

Next: 2018 NFL Mock Draft: Kirk Cousins Creates Quarterback Scramble

If that weren’t enough they also secured quality role players like Ian Scott, Todd Johnson and Justin Gage who helped the team reach the Super Bowl a few years later. It remains the most productive draft they’ve had this side of the new millennium. So perhaps it’s time to venture a similar move this April.