When the season ended, Bears GM Ryan Poles said he expected to take the decision at quarterback into April if he had to do it.
This does make sense if you’re trading away the top pick because it maximizes what a team can get in exchange as the interested teams fight it out in a bidding war.
Then again, it didn’t happen last year.
However, the solid consensus among mock drafters says the Bears will keep the first pick and draft Caleb Williams even if Fox Sports host Colin Cowherd doesn’t think it’s the case.
If this is what they’re looking at, the timeline on a decision about Justin Fields somes likely to come earlier. It’s a two-part decision. There’s deciding they want to draft Williams and then deciding they’ll trade their quarterback. Last year Fields stayed and the draft pick was traded earlier.
So an announcement could actually come at any time. Teams can agree to the trade but it wouldn’t become official until the new league year. That’s when free agency begins March 13. Actually, it starts March 11 with the legalized tampering period.
The great trade of Matthew Stafford for Jared Goff came down on Jan. 30 in 2021. Carson Wentz was shipped by the Eagles to the Colts on Feb. 18.
Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer, in a mailbag article, answered a question asking about chances the Bears are using the first pick for a quarterback and in it he went one step beyond to give out a timeline that seems more realistic than Poles’ suggestion he’d wait until April.
“I’d say better than even odds that the Chicago Bears take Caleb Williams first—and the clock is ticking on making that decision, believe it or not,” Breer told the reader. “If Chicago wants to extract the best value it can for Justin Fields, it’d be preferable to get the process of finding a trade partner off the ground between now and the beginning of March.
“Once the league year starts, quarterback spots across the NFL will start to fill up. Kirk Cousins will decide on a home. Baker Mayfield will, too. And so will scores of others. So if the Bears drag their feet on this, they could miss the market at the position. That’s why I’d bet that Fields could be moved around the time of the NFL Scouting Combine or so … if I were a betting man.”
The combine starts Feb. 26 and runs through March 4.
It’s a good timeline to offer and the Bears themselves are a good example why.
Last year their decision to trade down from No. 1 with Carolina came March 9 but the deal was actually being made at the combine. Poles said during a podcast that he used the combine to start up that trade.
“I knew from the jump that they were a team that really wanted their quarterback,” Poles said. “They wanted to control the draft. That meant a lot to them. They got in front early, at the combine. I had a good relationship with their general manager, Scott Fitterer, and felt like at that time it was best to close on the deal when we did, instead of dragging it out.”
All the teams and their GMs are at the combine. It’s when plenty of deals get done.
So while the Fields-Williams drama continues to build daily and becomes intolerable for Bears fans on social media, they would be happy to know a possible end to their wait seems likely to come by the combine at the end of this month, or at the lastest on March 11 or March 12.
Then again, there are always exceptions to the rule.
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