Chicago Bears: 4 mistakes made over the offseason

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Chicago Bears (Photo by Wesley Hitt/Getty Images) /

1. Trading two fourth-round picks

The first mistake is a compilation of two separate moves. During all of the craziness that was the free agency frenzy, the Bears made headlines when they traded for quarterback Nick Foles. It was clear the Jacksonville Jaguars were going to move forward with Gardner Minshew as their quarterback for the foreseeable future. Thus, Foles was expendable.

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Everyone knew Foles was on the move. The real issue was his contract, though. Regardless of whether or not the Bears and Foles were able to restructure his deal (of course, they did), trading a fourth-round pick made zero sense.

If Jacksonville was going to try and rid themselves of a 4-year, $88 million contract to their now-backup quarterback, the Bears had zero need to give up a valuable fourth-round pick. That pick could have been used to find someone with a potential day-one impact in this year’s draft. Many believe the Bears could have gotten Foles and a pick instead of trading that fourth rounder.

On top of trading a fourth rounder for Foles, Pace traded next year’s fourth-round pick to move up in the fifth round and select Trevis Gipson, pass rusher out of Tulane. While I see the potential Pace saw in Gipson, I don’t think there was any reason to trade up for Gipson — especially if they hadn’t traded this year’s fourth rounder.

Look at just a few players selected after the Bears’ original fourth-round pick: Wide receiver Antonio Gandy-Golden, guard/center Ben Bredeson and guard/center Tyler Biadasz. Do you think Bears fans would have loved to have any one of those three, plus a pass rusher in the fifth round? I would say so.

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