Intel: There Was Way More Trade Interest In The Chicago Bears’ 25th Pick Than Reported
The Chicago Bears felt like a strong candidate to trade down from the 25th pick in the NFL draft last week. They had several roster spots to fill and needed more depth. Most experts believed the difference in talent between someone taken in the 20s and the 40s was negligible this year. One had to imagine general manager Ryan Poles was considering it. He has often liked stacking extra picks. However, when the time arrived and the Bears went on the clock, nothing happened. They stayed put and selected Oregon safety Dillon Thieneman.
It seems the trade action wasn’t quite strong enough. Or so we thought. People close to the organization told Sports Mockery that the Bears received several calls about moving the pick. As many as half a dozen teams were interested. Some of them even dangled veteran players in their offers. That includes Tyree Wilson. The Las Vegas Raiders traded the former 1st round pick to New Orleans for a 5th rounder during the draft. It appears they’d hoped that packaging him might be enough to entice the Bears to make a deal.
Once it became clear Thieneman would fall, Poles stopped taking calls.
The Chicago Bears probably made the right call.
If they hadn’t, it is almost certain that the Buffalo Bills would’ve taken him at #26 overall. Once the Bears selected Thieneman, they traded down from that spot and two more times to exit the 1st round entirely. San Francisco (#27) did the same. That proves the options after Thieneman weren’t ideal and also shows there was definitely a cluster of teams wanting to move up. Houston jumped up to take guard Keylan Rutledge. Miami pounced for cornerback Chris Johnson. New England went up for left tackle Caleb Lomu. The Jets came back in for wide receiver Omar Cooper, and Tennessee slipped back into the 1st round for defensive end Keldric Faulk.
The Bears’ decision clearly shows that they had a considerably higher grade on Thieneman than any of the other prospects they could’ve gotten had they moved down. In those situations, it is often more fruitful to take the player than to gather a few extra picks. Chicago needed another safety to pair with Coby Bryant. Thieneman could be slotted into the starting lineup immediately and boasts an All-Pro ceiling. It was a perfect fit. Wilson was never going to change the status quo.
The quality of the draft class played a big part in this.
Multiple reports have indicated that opinions of the 2026 class were low. In terms of talent depth, it was being mentioned in the same breath as 2013, one of the worst in modern NFL history. If picking high in the 1st round is unlikely to save you, then dropping further down the board seems inadvisable. It appears the Chicago Bears held that same opinion. Extra picks in a lackluster class wouldn’t be worth much. The better option is to get the best player possible and go from there.
Ironically, the two drafts played out in a similar way. In 2013, the Bears chose to stay put and pick. They ended up with guard Kyle Long, also from Oregon. Right after that, multiple teams swung trades to move down, including the Rams and Patriots. Time is a flat circle, it seems. Just over a decade later, the Bears took another Oregon kid late in the 1st round despite multiple calls for a trade. Maybe this is a sign that they made the right decision again. We’ll soon find out.