Chicago Bears: 3 reasons why they must draft a quarterback
It remains to be seen whether the Chicago Bears will draft a quarterback in 2020, but here are three “reasons” why they must.
If you clicked on this story about your Chicago Bears, then ‘thank you.’ Also, I’m sorry. You probably clicked on this story thinking you’d find a slideshow breaking down concrete reasons why the Bears must select a quarterback in the 2020 NFL Draft.
Perhaps reasons like, ‘they need someone to push Mitch,’ or ‘they need a starter who can lead the team next year.’ Maybe you even thought salary cap considerations would be one of the three. While those are all good reasons, they are not why, at least for the purposes of this post, that the Bears must draft a quarterback.
Rather, the reasons relevant to this article are unconventional, and they are Russell Wilson, Tom Brady, and Gardner Minshew.
If you are completely lost wondering why the heck the Bears have to draft a quarterback because of those three players, let me try to explain.
You see, the New England Patriots drafted Brady in the sixth round in 2000 despite Drew Bledsoe having two years remaining on his contract. Wilson was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in the third round in 2012 even though they signed Matt Flynn to a $26 million contract a month earlier. Finally, the Jacksonville Jaguars took a chance on Gardner Minshew in the sixth round last year immediately after signing Nick Foles to a 4 year/$88 million contract.
In each of those scenarios, the Patriots, Seahawks, and Jaguars had at the time, at least in their minds, a stable solution to their quarterback situation. However, as it ultimately turned out, it was fortuitous that they made the selections despite their seemingly stable situation.
In the Patriots’ case, a Bledsoe injury gave way to Brady and the rest was history. As it relates to the Seahawks, Wilson outplayed Flynn in the preseason and won the job. Finally, with the Jaguars it was a combination of an injury to Foles that allowed Minshew to shine, and then when Foles returned, poor play relegated him back to the bench.
However, the common theme among all three situations is that the teams weren’t too short-sighted or prideful to assume they got it right, despite, at least in two cases, spending considerable money on free agents. Instead, they added competition to the most important position on the team and it paid dividends.
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The Bears, on the other hand, have committed peanuts relative to these other scenarios, and have yet to make a commitment beyond next season for Mitch. So why in the world would they not add to the quarterback room through the draft as the teams above did? After all, don’t you think those teams are glad they did?