Could the Chicago Bears have stayed at No. 3 and landed Mitchell Trubisky without having to trade three picks? The answer isn’t clear, but it sure sounds like they may have been able to.
Several NFL reporters revealed Friday that, while there may have been interest, there was little to no evidence that any other teams were actually pushing hard to acquire the No. 2 pick from the San Francisco 49ers with the intention of drafting Trubisky ahead of Chicago.
Michael Lombardi of The Ringer reported that he was not finding any teams other than the Bears who actually called the 49ers with a trade offer.
Trying to track down the teams that might have competed with Bears for the second pick and have not found one–Jets never called 49ers
— Michael Lombardi (@mlombardiNFL) April 28, 2017
Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports took things a step further, saying that the Bears “were bidding against themselves” in Trubisky trade talks.
There are none. #Bears were bidding against themselves on that one. Nobody was trying to move to 2 for Trubisky. https://t.co/Z7SO0duvL4
— Charles Robinson (@CharlesRobinson) April 28, 2017
Adam Jahns of the Chicago Sun-Times indicated the same thing, saying that there were “serious doubts” that the Bears had to fend off any major competition to get the No. 2 pick.
@DaBearsk @mlombardiNFL @CharlesRobinson no. They aren’t wrong. Serious doubts re: serious competition. But thought of them sparked action.
— Adam Jahns (@adamjahns) April 28, 2017
What we know is that 49ers general manager John Lynch made very clear that the team was willing to trade down. We also know that reports flew about San Francisco receiving serious interest in the pick. It sounds like none of that interest turned into anything resembling a concrete offer — except in the case of the Bears, who seemingly panicked at the prospect of the interest being real and made the move. As it turns out, they made have made a rather reckless trade out of what they felt was an abundance of caution.
