The Chicago Bears face a difficult decision this offseason: To keep or not to keep quarterback Justin Fields?
The 2021 first-round pick is playing the best football of his career, and he certainly looks like the budding star that Chicago envisioned when they drafted him three years ago. In most circumstances, keeping and building around a QB of Fields’ caliber is an easy decision.
But the Bears also own the first overall pick in this year’s draft, courtesy of the Carolina Panthers from last year’s trade for Bryce Young. With the pick, Chicago could draft another promising QB like USC’s Caleb Williams or North Carolina’s Drake Maye and have them on a cheap rookie deal for at least four years.
If the Bears end up trading Fields, what could they receive in return for the Ohio State product? According to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler and Courtney Cronin, pulled executives around the league believe the third-year QB would be worth a second or third-round draft pick:
“The consensus in an informal poll of league evaluators is that Fields would be worth a second- or third-round pick in a pre-draft trade. When compared to former top-10 picks recently traded, that’s better than Trey Lance, whom Dallas acquired from San Francisco for a fourth-round pick, but slightly worse than Sam Darnold, who, along with a sixth-round pick, went from the Jets to Carolina for second- and fourth-rounders.”
Unlike Trey Lance (four career starts), Fields has valuable playing experience. And unlike Darnold (21-34-0 as a starter), Fields has shown flashes of becoming a future superstar.
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So a second or third-round pick seems fair for Fields, should the Bears decide to trade him and take another quarterback with the No. 1 selection. The bottom line: GM Ryan Poles and head coach Matt Eberflus have plenty of options to choose from.
