What draft picks did the Chicago Bears end up with from Baltimore?
A few months back, the Chicago Bears told Roquan Smith to pack his bags and head to Baltimore. The two sides seemed to be at a standstill and Ryan Poles decided to move on from the star linebacker right before the 2022 NFL trade deadline. In return for Smith, the Bears received a second-round and fifth-round pick in 2023. Unfortunately for Chicago, the Ravens were still a playoff team despite losing Lamar Jackson for a large portion of the season.
Fans, analysts, and even the Bears organization were on watch the rest of the season as they all hoped that the draft pick would creep closer and closer to the top of the draft board. That didn’t happen though as the Ravens snuck into the Wild Card Weekend. The team put up a good fight vs the Cincinnati Bengals, but a fumble at the two-yard line led to a 98-yard fumble return to put the Bengals ahead 24-17. That would be the difference in the game as the Ravens were eliminated.
We now know what draft picks the Chicago Bears received from the Ravens
Now that the Ravens’ 2022 season has come to an end, the Chicago Bears can start prepping better for the 2023 NFL Draft. The team has eight draft picks going into the offseason, but we saw Ryan Poles turn five picks into 11 last season. This year, the team has the first-overall pick which makes me believe they have an opportunity to trade down and gain even more picks in 2023.
The one pick fans are upset about is the team’s second-round pick. Ryan Poles traded it to the Pittsburgh Steelers for Chase Claypool. Claypool has flashed at times for the Steelers and had a great rookie campaign, however, since coming to Chicago, he has been fairly invisible.
Had the Bears been able to trade the second-rounder received from Baltimore, it would have been easier to swallow, but since the Bears finished dead last, that second-round pick is now the first of the second-round and technically the 32nd player taken in the draft since Miami forfeited their first-round pick. There were other teams reportedly interested in Claypool (Packers for one) and the Bears’ only chance of landing him was their own second-rounder.
The hope now is with an offseason under his belt and the chance to develop chemistry with Justin Fields, Chase Claypool will return better results in 2023 than he did in 2022. Now, with the Ravens eliminated, we now know that the Chicago Bears will have the 54th-overall pick (second-round) and the 158th-overall pick (fifth-round). These of course are on top of their additional picks in the first round (first overall), third round (65th overall), fourth round (102nd plus pending Eagles pick), fifth-round (135th overall) and seventh round (219th overall). What will Poles do with them all?