Leave It To The Chicago Bears To Kick Their Fans While We're Down

By Stephen Gossett in Arts & Entertainment on Apr 28, 2017 5:30PM

The chosen (left) Getty Images / Photo: Jeff Zelevansky

It's been a few hours since the Chicago Bears made the gobsmacking, out-of-nowhere decision to trade four picks in order to move up one spot (again that's one spot) in the NFL draft. But we're still reeling. The Bears gave up that staggering amount for one Mitchell Trubisky, the UNC quarterback who—despite his admittedly Chicago-y surname—remains a deeply unknown and unproven quantity for any club, the Bears included. (Trubisky worked out with Bears just one time, according to reports.)

As Bears fans are all too aware, the club surrendered two third-rounders and a fourth-round pick, to move from third to all the way up to second in the first round order. For a guy who started a grand total of 13 games at North Carolina. It's hard to grasp a comparable move. Even the Washington football team, whose multi-pick surrender to draft the eventually disappointing Robert Griffin III in 2012, had much greater reason to expect big things from their pick than the Bears seemingly do. Has there ever been anything quite like this?

True, the Bears need help at QB. But they also need help on the line, and on defense, and... well, everywhere. As football gambles go, it's hard to imagine a bigger downside considering the cost.

The smart money says that Bears GM Ryan Pace was the victim of a Great Sports Swindle. Did San Francisco, who netted the Bears' bounty in exchange for the No. 2 slot, trick Pace into thinking there was a demand that was never really there?

Deadpsin writes:

"[It] has a lot to do with the 49ers’ ability to convince the Bears that there was a big trade market for the No. 2 pick. Nobody expected the 49ers to take Trubisky, and so the only way to explain away the Bears’ decision to give up so much to get him is if they were certain that a handful of other teams were clamoring to make the same trade."

As The Athletic's Jon Greenberg adroitly put it about Pace, "You want to play poker with a guy like that."

Well, according to the Sun-Times, sources said that at least four other teams were in fact pursuing a move up to draft Trubisky. Nevertheless, what an astronomical price tag.

Perhaps the pain would be more manageable had the Bears not just daydreamed through one of their most unwatchable seasons in franchise history—one so bad that ESPN filmmakers thought any fan loyal enough to stick it out was curious enough to warrant anthropological study. But the franchise of course has a long recent history of gut-punch personnel moves—from the Thomas Jones trade to the Greg Olsen deal, from the high-priced Eddie Royal signing to the Mark Sanchez head-scratcher.

But like those ESPN documentarians who chronicled the 2016 woes, at least we got some good footage of out so much heartbreak.

NSFW below:

This post has been updated.