The Bears have the first pick in the 2023 NFL Draft and what they’ll do with it will be a storyline in the coming weeks and months.
Monday brought a report that said the team is leaning toward trading the pick away to a team looking for a quarterback, which would leave them to move forward with Justin Fields running the offense. There was also word that they intend to meet with the top quarterback prospects in this year’s class, which General Manager Ryan Poles confirmed during a press conference from the Scouting Combine on Tuesday.
Poles said that isn’t a sign that they’re looking to move on without Fields, however. He said he has not spoken to other teams about trading the 2021 first-round pick and that the team’s mindset is to move forward with the quarterback, but that they need to do their due diligence on the players entering the league this year.
“That’s the plan right now. We’re going to do our homework on this class,” Poles said.
Poles reiterated that he’d need to be blown away by a prospect in order to shift gears at quarterback this offseason. If that doesn’t happen, it seems likely that another team will be on the clock when the draft begins in April.