Worth the price?
Bears again gave up a lot to draft QB, but if Fields is the long-sought answer, it will be
If Justin Fields develops into the quarterback the Chicago Bears are hoping, the price paid to move up and acquire him will be more than worth it and quickly forgotten.
That can be said of the move up in the 2017 draft to select Mitch Trubisky. It can be said as well for the investment of two first-round picks, Kyle Orton and more to land Jay Cutler in 2009.
General manager Ryan Pace found a trade partner with the New York Giants, moving up to No. 11 in exchange for the 20th pick, a fifth-round pick at No. 164 and 2022 first- and fourth-round picks. One key to the deal for the Bears was protecting their second- and third-round picks Friday with roster needs to fill. Going shorthanded next year was the trade-off that had to be made.
The deal was surprising from the standpoint that Giants GM Dave Gettleman never had traded down — in any round — in eight previous drafts with the Giants and the Carolina Panthers.
“You guys don’t believe me. I’ve tried in the past!” Gettleman told New York media last week. “Honest. I’ve tried to trade back, but there’s got to be value. I’m not getting fleeced. I refuse to do it. And if somebody wants to make a bad trade back, God bless ‘em.”
Every team has a draft trade-value chart that assigns a point value to each pick, and picks traded in future years are assigned the value of the 16th pick of the round. So in assigning point values for this trade, the Bears received the 11th pick, and the Giants got the 20th pick, the 164th pick and the assigned values of the 16th overall pick and the 16th pick in Round 4 in 2022.
Generally, the team trading back is going to want to get more points in the deal in order to justify moving out. But the transaction fee in this trade, according to the charts of two different teams, is equal to the 21st or 22nd overall pick in the draft, a total of roughly 1,000 points.
In comparison, the Vikings moved back from 14th overall to No. 23 with the New York Jets. In that deal, the Vikings also sent the Jets the 143rd pick (Round 4) for a first-round pick and two third-round picks (Nos. 66 and 86). The point value difference is roughly 100. The Philadelphia Eagles sent the 12th overall pick and a Round 3 pick (No. 82) to the Dallas Cowboys to climb two spots to 10th overall. Again, the point value difference is roughly 100 points.
The San Francisco 49ers paid a ransom to move up to No. 3 in a deal with the Miami Dolphins last month. The Niners selected North Dakota State quarterback Trey Lance, using the No. 12 pick, two future first-round picks and a thirdrounder. That deal was roughly 2,200 points in favor of the Dolphins, the equivalent value of a first- or second-overall pick.
By waiting to trade up outside of the top 10, Pace was able to make a deal that didn’t have an exorbitant cost and, again, protecting his second- and third-round picks had to be a goal.
“That communication started really (Thursday) morning about something like that happening, and when we were able to execute it in the draft, I just feel real fortunate,” Pace said. “We knew there was going to be a sweet spot for us to be in that quarterback world, and right in this area was kind of it.
“It just required a little bit of patience to get to that point, and kind of what’s fair for us and what’s fair for the other club. You have to be realistic to do these trades, and I thought this one was very fair. It kind of played out that way. We started making a lot of those phone calls (Thursday) morning with those teams in that area and just trying to find out what was a reality, and this one was. So it worked out. But we were making phone calls all along there, that whole area, all in that range.”
For Gettleman, the trade that led the Giants to select Florida wide receiver Kadarius Toney at No. 20 was enough to make him finally deal back.
“Obviously it was too good an opportunity,” he told New York media after Round 1. “It added too much value, and we felt very comfortable with where our board was and we felt comfortable with who would be there, who would be available in that slot. So we made it. We did it. We added a one and a 4 next year. Another pick for this year and another pick for next year. We were very pleased we were able to make the play.”
When the Bears moved up one slot from No. 3 to No. 2 to get Trubisky, they gave the Niners the first-round pick, third-round picks that were Nos. 67 and 70 and a fourth-rounder that was No. 111. The transaction fee was worth the value of roughly the 37th overall pick, another high price.
Had Trubisky panned out as the Bears had hoped, the deal never would have been an issue. The trade the Bears made isn’t what stings today — it’s that they were forced into a position to reboot the position this offseason.
The deal will be more than fair for the Bears if Fields develops into a franchise quarterback. Pace and coach Matt Nagy certainly were desperate when considering the only quarterbacks under contract entering the draft were Andy Dalton and Nick Foles. As Fields fell through the top 10 and reached No. 11, they were motivated to act.
“The Bears did good,” one GM said via text. “Who cares (what they traded) if they got it right. Time will tell, but I would have done the exact same thing. Fields should have gone second.”