The Chicago Bears enter the 2023 NFL Draft as one of the most need-heavy teams in the league. After all, they finished with a league-worst record of 3-14 last season.
Ironically enough, to get out of this hole, the Bears are turning to the very event that put them in this rut in the first place, the NFL Draft.
From bad trade-ups to blatant misses on early picks, these draft-day debacles ended up defining former general manager Ryan Pace’s tenure and setting the franchise back several years.
Getting high-value players from a pool of hundreds of college standouts may seem like a simple task, but it’s proven to be much easier said than done. Chicago isn’t alone, either. Many of the teams that will find themselves picking in the early first round can chalk up their fortune to missed picks in years prior.
The truth is the NFL Draft is a low-success event. Even teams known for their scouting prowess tend to end up with only a couple of impact players a year. With that said, not all misses are created equally. Even in a league where only 44% of first-round picks sign second contracts with the team that drafted them, some errors rise above the rest.
The Chicago Bears are no outlier. Here is the worst Chicago Bears draft pick from the last ten drafts.