The Chicago Bears may, to use a blackjack analogy, decide to split tens while making a franchise-altering NFL Draft selection in April.
Instead of selecting between incumbent quarterback Justin Fields and the likely top choice, Caleb Williams, ESPN is speculating that they may choose to hold both quarterbacks until 2024.
Sunday, ahead of Super Bowl 2024 in Las Vegas at Allegiant Stadium, ESPN’s Adam Schefter stated, “The Bears have talked about the idea, as unlikely as it seems, of carrying both quarterbacks.”
Schefter continued by stating that the Bears would keep onto Fields and select their pick in the draft, most likely Williams of USC.
“That’s difficult to imagine,” Schefter went on. However, that is a discussion that has taken place within the company.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Network revealed on Saturday that ridiculous sums of money would need to be paid in order to trade for the top overall pick and wrest it away from Chicago.
According to Rapoport, “the Bears would need to pull off a historic haul, something crazy,” to trade from the No. 1 overall pick. “There are numerous implications for that piece of information. First of all, that suggests they would probably select a quarterback at number one unless they receive some kind of outrageous draft compensation for a player attempting to move up for Caleb Williams.
However, Chicago’s decision to maintain faith in Fields, who is still developing, and try to develop Williams in 2024 would be a singular circumstance without much precedent in NFL history.
We can go back to 2019, the year the Cardinals selected Josh Rosen with the tenth pick, and the year they selected Kyler Murray with the first overall pick. Even so, Rosen was transformed into a tragic hero by the Cardinals, who chose to send him to the Dolphins following the draft, where he has since struggled and been traded around the league.
Fields is already a top-tier dual threat player, having demonstrated notable advancements in the pass game in 2023.
Three quarterbacks in NFL history have completed a season with 1,000 yards of rushing, including him.