Former NFL GM makes wild suggestion for the Chicago Bears' No. 1 pick involving Bryce Young, Justin Fields

The Chicago Bears locked down the first pick in the 2023 NFL Draft this past weekend, thanks to an inspired finale performance from Lovie Smith’s Texans to beat the Colts and move ahead of the Bears in the standings. Now that the pick is Chicago’s, former NFL general manager Mike Tannenbaum has a bizarre idea for what they should do with it: Draft Bryce Young!

Tannenbaum joined ESPN on Tuesday morning and laid out his case for why the Bears ought to select Alabama quarterback Bryce Young with the No. 1 pick and trade away Justin Fields, who they traded up to select in the 2020 Draft. Here was the pitch:

“Yeah, I would trade Justin Fields. And I’m taking nothing away from him. I think he’s a good, maybe a top-10 quarterback. But if you can get at least a first and a third-round pick, which I believe you can. Because so many teams need a quarterback, I’m going to draft Bryce Young, who I think is going to be a better quarterback than Justin Fields. And when I do that I get at least a first and a third-round pick.

“I’m resetting Bryce Young’s rookie contract and I’m going to be able to get at least four starting caliber players. A great illustration of what happened in Jacksonville. Trevor Lawrence is on his rookie deal, they go out and get guys like Christian Kirk, Brandon Scherff, Evan Engram, amongst others. So if I can turn Justin Fields basically into six quality players and get Bryce Young, who I think will be the better player, I’m making that move if I’m the Bears.”

Essentially, Tannenbaum is emphasizing the value of quarterbacks on rookie contracts. Since they’re the highest-paid players in the league, having them on their initial four-year rookie contracts is so valuable. The great ones are making pennies on the dollar in their first years compared to what they’ll sign for once the rookie deal is up.

So, his point is that drafting Young and trading Fields simply gives Chicago four more years of paying a quarterback a rookie rate, when Fields could negotiate a major extension as soon as next offseason. Having Young under their thumb for the next four years while trading Fields for other picks would allow the Bears to load up assets. They’d have a slew of extra picks and plenty of cap space for the next four years to build a real core around Young, which they haven’t been able to do for Fields.

Dominique Foxworth agreed with Tannenbaum on the point that what surrounds a quarterback is crucial to their development. However, he’d rather just trade that first round pick for more assets and use those to build around a quarterback that’s actually showed some promise — as opposed to a guy (Young) whose never stepped foot in the NFL.

“I mean, I tend to think that the surroundings around a young quarterback are more important than the quarterback’s talent himself. So I think what it comes down to is whether you go with Bryce Young or Will Levis or Justin Fields — the point is, you need to build up structure around them, be it coaches or players that are more talented than what they have now. However you can think to do that is the move. That’s why I would keep Justin Fields, because I think the first round pick is more valuable. I think the No. 1 pick is more valuable than Justin Fields so you trade away the pick.”

It’s certainly a fascinating scenario for Chicago. Hard to imagine they’d ditch Fields so quickly, but if one former NFL GM is thinking it, surely some of the others are too.