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The Bears' Aggressive Draft Day Move to Acquire Mitchell Trubisky Might Be the Worst Trade-up of All Time

By Scott Rogust

The Bears drafting Mitchell Trubisky turned out to be a colossal mistake.
The Bears drafting Mitchell Trubisky turned out to be a colossal mistake. / Stacy Revere/Getty Images

The NFL is dominated by the quarterback position. Without a quality signal caller, any team is sunk. Unfortunately, having a desperate need for a quarterback will force an organization to perform questionable actions.

The prime example of that right now is the Chicago Bears trading up for Mitchell Trubisky in the 2017 NFL Draft, which will forever go down as one of the worst draft day moves of all-time. Just three years later, the team is reportedly looking for his replacement, with Teddy Bridgewater being the common name brought up before susequent reporting cast doubt on a deal.

Back on draft night, the Bears held the third overall pick and were looking to find their next quarterback after parting ways with Jay Cutler. The choices in the first round were Trubisky, Deshaun Watson, or Patrick Mahomes. Throughout the draft process, the Bears became infatuated with Trubisky despite his limited time as a starter with the UNC Tar Heels.

Everyone knew of the Bears' love for Trubisky, and that included the San Francisco 49ers, who held pick No. 2 in the first round. Once the draft commenced, 49ers general manager John Lynch called Ryan Pace of the Bears to tell him to make him an offer to trade up, or else he'd be taking Trubisky. Pace panicked, and surrendered their first-, third-, and fourth-round picks in 2017 and a third-rounder in 2018 just to move up one spot.

The rest is history. The Bears got their guy... but he never yielded the desired results. Trubisky never developed into the game-changing quarterback that Chicago expected him to, despite leading the team to an NFC North title in 2018. Even offensive-minded head coach Matt Nagy couldn't improve Trubisky's game.

And here we are.

Now, the Bears have watched Deshaun Watson develop into a powerful dual-threat quarterback with the Texans, while Mahomes already has league MVP and Super Bowl MVP awards in his trophy case. The Bears are currently searching high and low in free agency and the trade block for Trubisky's replacement.

Indeed, the Bears surrendering so much draft capital to move up one spot for Trubisky is arguably the worst trade-up in NFL Draft history.