They passed on Stroud for Wright and Stevenson and Moore. They had no idea where they’d be picking this year so it’s silly to suggest they passed on Stroud for the first overall pick a year later.

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They also had no idea how good Stroud would be at the time so wouldn't it also be meaningless that Stroud was good if it is meaningless that they ended up with the #1 overall pick?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

A guy paid to pick football players can’t fall back on the “I had no idea that the 2nd overall pick was good” argument.

We can do that, but an NFL GM probably shouldn’t.

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He also can say "He thought the value of the first round pick the year after was better". We know Stroud is good. We know he got the #1 pick. If one is a valid way to judge his decision then so is the other.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

You can't exclude the additional picks. There had to be a calculation of how great the Panthers would be this year.

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For sure.

Nowhere close. He definitively could have drafted Stroud. Who he drafted in 2024 was a classic known unknown.

Things break differently last season and we could be getting excited about picking Joe Alt at 5 to shore up a line for Fields.

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Poles correctly assessed the Panthers would be bad (hand up: I thought they’d be much better).

However, passing on a QB almost as good as Jordan Love for unknown draft positioning won’t absolve him if Williams doesn’t work out.

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I agree with Antioch - looking back years from now with hindsight, the debate is Stroud vs Wright, Moore, etc. If the QB from this draft doesn't hit and Stroud continues his ascent to stardom then - again in hindsight - we didn't win the trade. A good to great QB is more valuable than all the pieces the Bears got in the trade. Again, the Jets are a really talented team, perhaps more talented than the chefs. But their QB sucks so all that talent is wasted. When Minny lost cousins this year they went from playoff team to out of the race, it didn't matter that they had Jefferson, Addison, and Hockenson. When Burrow went down Cincy lost all hope. And so on.

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Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

Exactly

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You can't exclude C-Will or the 2025 pick from the evaluation. Those are assets the Bears got in return. Personally, I think C-Will will be better than Stroud. That alone will make this a grand slam. If I am wrong about C-Will, then that changes things.

Look at the return the 49ers got for Moore and CMC. Those are all time bad deals. Thanks Lovie!

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I am including it and I agree with you - if the draft pick hits (we get a star QB) then in hindsight it was a good trade, but if the pick doesn't and Stroud continues to ball out, then in hindsight we lose. I say we lose because in hindsight/if you knew the future you'd go back and take the star QB who was a star for 10+ years over the star LT, star WR, picks, etc.

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Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

I don't think Stroud will be what MANY are forecasting. That said, if the Bears didn't trade the pick last year, Stroud would have been coming to a team with no offense. That trade helped us get the assets needed to support a quarterback in a loaded quarterback class. Poles won't admit it, but I think he expected to have multiple top 10 picks in a great quarterback class.

Edit: Stroud was also open about not wanting to replace Fields. That may have been a tough situation.

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I know, I kept saying hindsight as a way to qualify the whole discussion. Maybe the better word is academic because we're talking about a lot of things that were impossible to know at the time of the trade. For me personally I hate using hindsight to judge someone's decisions, need to go by what they knew at the time. Hindsight is David Hough's speciality. Maybe like Antioch said the best we can say is Poles failed to forecast that Stroud would be better than Fields. As an aside, Stroud also came to a barren lockerroom when he joined the Texans. Pff and others said the Texans had the worst receiver group in the entire league heading into Stroud's rookie year. Like Mahomes did with his no name receivers, Stroud elevated that group. Anyway, let's see what happens. I hope Stroud builds upon his rookie year. I respect you think he'll fall from grace but I really hope he succeeds. He had the type of year everyone hoped Fields had in year three and he did it as a rookie.

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Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

I don't hope Stroud sucks. I just don't see a top 5 quarterback. I could be dead wrong about that. More than anything, I hope that C-Will is that Mahomes like talent.

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It’s hard to include the full vale of Williams in “The Haul” because it was luck that Carolina was the worst team.

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But again, by the same logic, Brian Urlacher was a bad draft pick because we passed on Tom Brady.

It was a great trade. If the Bears could go back right now and undo it they wouldn't. Carolina would.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Tom Brady wasn’t a reasonable alternative to the Urlacher pick. Stroud was going to be drafted at or around the pick the Bears traded.

The trade looks great today. If Stroud has a great career & is the long term answer for the Texans, while the Bears never figure out the QB position and top out at a 9-10 win team on the back of a solid run blocking RT & a few years of DJ Moore, it won’t have been a great trade. It would arguably be worse than the (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky over Mahomes pick.

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I disagree. It wasn't like they made a deal with the Chiefs and the team went from first to worst. It was reasonable to foresee the Panthers having a top 5 pick. MANY of us ASSumed they would be better because their division is trash.

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Carolina lost everything. Bryce young will be a backup at the same time DJ Moore is breaking records.

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the world will always the world. your entire existence is defined by your response.

Bryce Young will be better this season.

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He's not The One. He has Stage 4 Midgetcondria.

I hear you. I don't believe he sucked because he was short. He literally had no time or weapons. I think they'll give him something to work with. His coach looks good.

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Agreed

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Agreed with Antioch. I know what you're saying, Rick, but I'm basing this on the bears situation and options at the time. I also disagree with you saying Carolina would undo the trade. They would still take the trade except instead of picking Young they'd take Stroud. Yes, Stroud wouldn't have Moore to throw to, but finding WRs is much easier than finding your QB.

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Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

They Bears would still be picking in the top 3, and Stroud wouldn't be considered a top 5 quarterback by some analysts.

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But again, you can't judge these things by that type of hindsight. It's like saying that I wish I had played the lottery but I would have played the winning numbers instead of the ones I chose.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I'm not sure we understand one another. Let me try a different way:

What's the bigger jackpot between hitting at QB with one pick or hitting at four other important skill positions but not having a QB?

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

The flaw is the idea that the Bears and the Panthers, in just about any scenario, don't end up with a top 5 QB draft pick.

The only exception would be if Fields was dominant this year and the Bears didn't need to draft a QB.

Of course you'd rather hit on a franchise QB but both the Panthers and the Bears had roughly same odds of that with the trade. The Bears just got a bunch of other stuff.

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I think there are degrees to this. Goff is good NFL starter, but not great enough for me to be upset about passing on him. Then there's the Mahomes level starter. You need years of therapy to get over passing on him. I think you're putting Stroud in the Mahomes camp.

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I mean, no one would ever trade a draft pick if you could simply go back and say "I would have chosen the best player left in that draft".

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!