Chicago Bears NFL Draft: 3 mistakes Pace can’t make

Trading Up

Ryan Pace loves to trade up in the draft. I mean, there may not be a more iconic duo in the NFL than Pace and a trade-up. Leonard Floyd, Mitch Trubisky, James Daniels, Anthony Miller, and David Montgomery immediately come to mind as instances in which Pace made a move up to get his guy.

That’s fine, in moderation. However, when it’s done consistently it becomes a problem. When you deplete your future inventory of draft picks by trading up and sending many more of them to the Las Vegas Raiders for Khalil Mack, you can quickly find yourself in a position with a lot of needs and not enough picks to satisfy them. This is especially true when you don’t hit on the majority of those moves.

And so this is where Pace finds himself. The Bears have two picks in the second-round — picks No. 43 and 50 — and then don’t pick again until pick No. 163, in the fifth round. There is a lot of talent between picks 51 and 162 that the Bears won’t even have a shot at absent trading down.

And that is precisely what he should do if the opportunity arises. He must stop mortgaging the future, and start planning for it by adding players in this draft by accumulating more picks via a trade down with one or both of their second-round picks.