Franchise quarterback or organization-wrecking blunder? With the picks the Bears surrendered to move up one spot to grab Mitch Trubisky, there really is no middle ground. Either he'll be the quarterback the team has long sought, or he'll be the mistake that spells the end of the Ryan Pace-John Fox era.
The Bears signed Mike Glennon to be their starting quarterback this season. He's guaranteed $16 million for 2017, so there's really not much debate about what his role is. So naturally he and many others were quite reasonably surprised not only that the Bears drafted a quarterback of the future, but moved up at the cost of three extra draft picks to take Trubisky.
My initial reaction was positive; bold move by a team to get possibly the best quarterback in the draft. But the more you look at, the more you're left with two key realities:
1) There's no consensus that he actually was the best quarterback in the draft, and
2) The Bears might have been bidding against themselves to move up one spot strictly based on reports that Cleveland wanted to move up to No. 2 and grab him, which may or may not have been true.
The last time the Bears traded up for a quarterback things didn't work out so well -- Rex Grossman. The last quarterback they selected in the top dozen picks didn't pan out either -- Cade McNown. None of that makes any difference here. But it is bizarre that the team committed so much money to Glennon two months ago to then commit so many picks to Trubisky just a short time later.
This article from the Cleveland Plain-Dealer indicates the Browns did in fact have Trubisky as their top QB and perhaps wanted to move up and grab him. If so, the Bears can at least feel they had to make the move they did to get their quarterback.
But if he's not the passer they hope he is, they'll have plenty of time to sit on a couch and watch the next decision-makers in Chicago take their own stab at a franchise quarterback. Because they'll all be fired.
--Andy Richardson