With the Arizona Cardinals looking more than functional in a big win over Atlanta, your Chicago Bears are once again in possession of the #1 overall pick.

In a season that’s seen nearly everything go wrong for Chicago, a positive like the Carolina Panthers’ 2023 implosion is not one to be taken for granted. Without Ryan Poles’ move to pick DJ Moore, the potential 2024 #1 overall pick, and even more draft assets from the Panthers’ pockets, Bears fans would be left discussing whether or not a win like last Thursday’s had sabotaged their future — instead, they can bask in the glory of a pair of Top 5 draft picks and a very reasonable chance at a franchise-changing Top 2 pick in 2024 (more on that another day).

No win is guaranteed in the NFL, but if we take a look at the Panthers’ upcoming schedule they’ve got quite a few doozies ahead.

Specifically…

• Playing a great defense like Dallas is never easy for a young QB, plus Dak and the Cowboys’ offense always seem to shine against poor opponents
• The Panthers’ division rivals (Atlanta, Tampa Bay, and New Orleans) have each lost winnable games recently & should be motivated to ‘get right’ against Carolina
  • Also, with the Bucs currently sitting at 4-5 after yesterday’s win, there’s a very reasonable chance that the Buccaneers will carry playoff hopes into their Week 18 contest
• Tennessee & Jacksonville each host the Panthers, only adding to those games’ difficulty
• And then there’s the Packers, but with Carolina facing Green Bay so late it’s worth wondering whether the Packers will finally see their injured defenders (Jaire Alexander, Quay Walker) return & bolster a struggling unit. Those additions may tip the balance.

I couldn’t be more biased — I want the Bears to pick at #1 again, after all — but there’s a very reasonable chance the Panthers win 1 game or less going forward. If that’s all they manage to win, they currently hold Strength of Schedule tiebreakers over the Giants, Cardinals, and Patriots and would ultimately deliver the first pick in the 2024 draft to Chicago. An exciting thought.

Their trip to Tennessee should be a pivot game — if Will Levis and DeAndre Hopkins can overcome the post-bye Panthers, Carolina won’t have much runway left on the schedule. But we’ll have to wait and see.

Your Turn: What, if anything, has you upbeat about the Bears right now?

Compensation update, per sources: Bears trading No. 1 overall pick to Carolina for:

pick No. 9
pick No. 61
a first-round pick in 2024
a second-round pick in 2025
WR DJ Moore pic.twitter.com/hHrHn1UIR2

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 10, 2023

Monday, on Twitter, I posted two polls, attempting to discern what fans were looking for in return for the first pick of the draft. The results were interesting.

Poll #1.

Would you like this trade?

Bears send Carolina the first pick.

Bears get pick 9, Carolina’s first rounder next year, and DJ Moore.

— DaBearsBlog (@dabearsblog) January 16, 2023

Poll #2.

Okay, take two.

Would you like this trade?

Bears send Carolina the first pick.

From Carolina, Bears get pick 9, the second rounder they acquired from SF in McCaffrey trade, first rounder next year, and DJ Moore.

— DaBearsBlog (@dabearsblog) January 16, 2023

Today I want to open the discussion up to the comments section below. Open your comment with TRADE ALERT and write, in detail, a trade for the first pick you’d be content to see. (I’m going to skip by all posts that don’t open with those two words IN CAPS.) We’ll take the best ones and use them in a larger post early next week. 

Why do I Like the Chicago Bears this Week?

I.

Always.

Like.

THE.

Chicago.

Bears.

Vikings at Bears Prediction

With Justin Fields, who accounts for about 90% of the offense, not playing, and Nathan Peterman, one of the worst starting quarterbacks in modern NFL history, playing, the Vikings will have their starters on the bench by early third quarter.

Vikings 33, Bears 9

Texans at Colts Prediction

Houston is simply playing better football, week in and week out. And while folks will argue they have no impetus to win this game and fall out of the first pick, the Deshaun Watson trade gave them more than enough ammunition to ensure they come out of the 2023 draft with whomever they deem their top prospect.

Texans 19, Colts 13

And with this prediction, the Chicago Bears will secure the first pick in the 2023 NFL Draft.

The Chicago Bears can’t possibly know if Justin Fields is capable of winning games for them if they don’t give him the opportunity to at least try to do so.

While many storylines have been about Fields’ inability to take the team down the field for wins late, those arguments have mostly ignored the positions in which the Bears have put the quarterback. The 2022 season has, essentially, been the organization asking Fields to make it look good without much support.

We saw it again last week.

The Bears had a chance to make the game interesting when on the last play of the third quarter, Fields uncorked a strike 44 yards down the field for Velus Jones Jr. Trailing 21-10, the team had life.

Then, it didn’t.

The Bears proceeded to run the ball three straight times before calling a pass play that relied on Fields threading the needle short of the first down marker. The Bears didn’t let Fields open the offense up again until the outcome of the game was already decided.

The next drive began with a swing pass that lost two yards (do they ever gain yardage on those plays?). On second-and-12, they ran the ball for no gain and relied on Fields to save them on third-and-12.

They got the ball back again, trailing 21-13. They proceeded to run the first two plays then asked Fields to make magic happen on third-and-13.

It isn’t as if the running game was working. After the first drive, David Montgomery and Khalil Herbert combined or 30 rushing yards on 18 carries. Montgomery has averaged more than 4.5 yards per carry in just two games this season. Herbert wasn’t quite up to speed after missing a handful of games on IR.

Fields is the straw that stirs the drink. Yet, with the game on the line, the Bears decided to go with what wasn’t working and ignore what could have. What about calling play action passes? RPOs? Rollouts? Anything that might have a chance to work because the traditional running game was not.

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