The Chicago Bears will likely have the first overall pick in this year's upcoming NFL draft, thanks to the Carolina Panthers and the trade they made last off-season. Normally, if you are adding to get another team's first-round pick, the hope is they play badly enough to get you a top-five pick.
Which QB would Chicago Bears draft?
For the Chicago Bears, this must be a dream come true not only getting a top-five pick but the first overall pick in a really good draft year. With players like Marvin Harrison Jr, Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, Brock Bowers, and many others.
The problem for the Bears is their current QB situation and the possible future of Justin Fileds with the team. With Fields in his third year and it still being very much up and down, it's hard to know whether or not GM Ryan Poles will give him a third chance or move on.
That decision for Poles isn't made any easier, with it being one of the best and most stacked QB draft classes to enter the league in a long time. Caleb Williams is being talked about being the next Patrick Mahomes and Drake Maye isn't too far behind him either.
The other important thing of note for the Bears is they don't just have the Panther's pick, but they still also have their first-rounder who will most likely be in the top ten as well. So if they do choose a different player first overall or trade down with that pick, they still have a second top-end pick that could be used for a QB.
So if the Bears do move on from Fields what are the odds that the QB they draft will be any good?
Taking a look at the QBs taking in the first round over the last ten years should give a pretty decent look at the odds.
Since 2013, there have been 32 quarterbacks taken within the first 32 picks. Five of those picks are no longer in the NFL, eight are their current team backup QB, well the rest are starters.
The easiest way the figure out the odds of the Bears QB selection being a franchise guy is to look at each of the 32 guys draft and give them a rating of either franchise, good, alright, bad, and bust.
A franchise QB is someone that you and most people believe can either win a Super Bowl or put their team in a spot to compete for one in most seasons. A good quarterback is someone who is either still early in their career or is getting close to that level.
An alright quarterback is someone who shows flashes of being good or even great but doesn't do it enough to move up. You can win with this guy, but not because of this guy most of the time.
A bad QB is someone who you will be looking to move on from at the end of the season or as soon as you can. They might not be a start right now, but if they need to come in for a game or two, it isn't the end of the season. Bust is someone who shouldn't be a starter in this league and is looked at as a bad draft pick at their spot shortly into their career.
Now, it's really hard to say where to put a rookie QB or someone who is in their second year and hasn't played a ton. So they get the category of to be determined. Only three players fit that mold. Steelers QB Kenny Pickett, Panthers QB Bryce Young, and Texans QB C.J. Stroud.
The Bad
While Pickett and Young have both struggled and Stroud has shined, there is nothing to say that any of those players will continue down that current path. So, for the time being, these three players are taken out of the data.
There also happens to be one more player that needs to be taken out of the data, and that is Dwayne Haskins, who tragically passed away a few years ago.
So, out of the 28 players that we can use, how many of them turned out to be busts in the NFL? That number is a shocking 12 with names including EJ Manuel, Blake Bortles, Carson Wentz, Mitch Trubisky, Zach Wilson, and probably the most famous bust, Johnny Manzel.
Drafting someone who is a bust sits at a scary 42.9% chance. That's not even factoring in the players that are considered bad, either.
Now if you do take a look at the players considered bad on this list there are only four of them and they are, Baker Mayfield, Teddy Bridgewater, Marcus Mariota, and Jamies Winston. All but one are current backups on their teams. While the one starter (Mayfield) hasn't had a great season.
The players that are bad make up 14.3% of a chance to draft, but if you add their total with the bust total of 42.9%, it adds up to 57.2%. So well over half the time you take a QB in the first round its someone that isn't good enough to be a starter in the NFL long term.
The good
The QBs in the alright category could very easily find themselves in either the good or bad category moving forward. but with that being said only four QBs fall in this area and those guys are Justin Fields, Jared Goff, Deshaun Watson, and Jordan Love.
At one point or another, all of these QBs have been talked about as being good and even great but there have also been times when the discussion was whether they should even still be starting QBs in the NFL.
There are only three guys that have made their way into the good/great spot and those guys are Trevor Lawrence, Tua Tagovailoa, and Kyler Murray. While five have reached the franchise level. Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, and finally the best QB in the NFL Patrick Mahomes
The alright spot makes up 14.3%, the good/great spot makes up 10.7%, and finally, the franchise spot makes up 17.9% for a total of 42.9%.
It is really hard to draft a QB in the NFL and then turn him into a franchise guy, which may lead GM Ryan Poles to keep Justin Fields, who has at least shown he can play in the NFL and has shown improvement over the last season. Either way, Poles does not have an easy choice in April.