The Athletic: ‘We’re getting Justin Fields’: An exclusive look inside the tension, elation of Bears’ draft room

[Dejo]

Naw

Don’t Nappy Roots me

 

[Varking]

The Athletic constantly churns out great content.

 

[ruprecht]

These are a few excerpts and notes from what is a pretty long story.


Bears and Giants worked out their draft trade that morning.

That became a reality when Fields fell, the Giants got on the clock, and both teams called in to the league office to confirm that they had traded picks.



After the season, Pace wrote a three-columned list of quarterbacks on his giant dry-erase board in his office: Trade possibilities; Free agent targets; Draft prospects.

Pace told Nagy he thought they had about a 5 percent chance of being able to get one of the top quarterbacks in the draft. Nagy was like, fuck that, we're going to make it happen.



Dalton was the only free agent quarterback the Bears talked to. Pace saw it as the perfect fit.

Later, while approaching the draft:



Ahead of the draft, the Bears ZOOMed with 175 prospects and conducted 120 in-person interviews at the Senior Bowl.

Bears had in-persons with Justin Fields, Trey Lance and Mac Jones.



The Bears charted out trade scenarios for every single pick in the first round, even the first overall pick, and what it might take to move to those positions.





The Broncos getting Teddy Bridgewater and the Panthers getting Sam Darnold----The Bears saw those two moves as key to realizing they might be able to realistically pull something off in the draft to move up and get a QB.


Pace waited until Draft Day at 8:30 a.m. to start calling around to teams.

The Bears had 10 people in their draft room, and they didn't let them in until an hour and a half before the draft.

After the Lions picked Penei Sewell, they entered the Bears' "sweet spot" of where they felt good about being able to trade up for their quarterback.

When the Eagles moved up to #10, Pace thought it might be to draft a quarterback. He called both the Eagles and the Giants to see what the Eagles were doing at 10 (I don't know why, but I find this hilarious.) The story doesn't say whether they told him.

In any case, then the Eagles chose the Alabama receiver, and Pace got back on the phone with the Giants to tell them to finalize the deal they had already worked out that morning.

Thanks.

 

[Chicago Staleys]

Delete

 

[Midway Monsters]

it's 3.99 a month right now, is there a better deal than that?

Mine said $1 a month for the first six months

 

[msadows]

Mine said $1 a month for the first six months

The Athletic

theathletic.com

All I had to do was google the athletic 1 dollar. Was the first hit. 6 bucks for 6 months is a fucking steal. Excellent reads to help get the football fix during the offseason.

 

[The Big Grabowski]

The Athletic is worth it for their draft content alone. Great feature article by Jahns.