Chicago Bears: 5 reasons Ryan Pace nailed 2021 NFL Draft

5. Ryan Pace kept the Chicago Bears’ plans under wraps

The best part about the two trades at the beginning of the draft? Nobody knew they were coming. Most of the experts thought the Bears would look to trade up to pick no. 4 in order to draft Fields, and that includes The Chicago Tribune’s Brad Biggs — who is very in tune with Halas Hall.

When picks started to roll by, sure fans may have felt hopeful. But, the closer we got to the Bears’ original pick, the more fans were nervous that a team like the New England Patriots would pass Chicago up in a trade. In the end, we didn’t expect the Bears to be at no. 11. The likely scenario was to trade into the top six to eight picks or stay put at 20.

In the second round, a lot of folks thought Pace would look to trade back to recoup more picks in the middle rounds. It made sense, after all, because the Bears had just traded away their fifth-rounder and didn’t have a pick in the fourth.

Yet, there we were again, watching Pace do the complete opposite. No one knew he was trading up for a second time in the first two rounds. Needless to say, that trade was even more surprising than the one for Fields. To come away with him and Jenkins was an absolute slam dunk.

Pace operated under wraps, and shocked the football world, yet again.