Peter King on The Blockbuster Trade

Here is Peter King's assessment of the blockbuster trade.  He confirms what I and others have said regarding the #1 picks we gave up (that they're too often wasted, especially by Angelo).

Also, what Angelo said regarding #1 picks in general (too much money, unrealistic expectations, etc)

Here's King, from SI.com

The Bears finally have the quarterback they've longed for. If anyone thinks the Bears paid too much, let me show you the 14 men who have been first-round picks for the Bears in the last 15 drafts: John Thierry, Rashaan Salaam, Walt Harris, Curtis Enis, Cade McNown, Brian Urlacher, David Terrell, Marc Colombo, Michael Haynes, Rex Grossman, Tommie Harris, Cedric Benson, Greg Olsen, Chris Williams. Let's eliminate judging the last two, from 2007 and 2008, because they don't have enough on their resumes yet. Let's look at the other 12.

Stars: 1 (Urlacher).

Very good NFL starters: 1 (Tommie Harris).

NFL starters: 2 (Walt Harris, Marc Colombo).

Had some moments, but ultimately failed: 3 (Grossman, Thierry, Haynes).

Busts: 5 (Salaam, Enis, McNown, Terrell, Benson).

Four of the 12 became consistent NFL starters, or better. An awful, awful track record. That is why Angelo, a career scout who has too often loved draft picks more than A-Rod loves himself, wasn't very emotional talking to me about what he gave up.

"I've kind of changed about draft choices, particularly first-rounders,'' Angelo told me. "I don't have the same conviction on ones that I used to. It's the money, the totally unrealistic expectations, players coming out younger and not as experienced, players with too much time on their hands and too much money and not being grounded enough. I've become a little pragmatic about the first-round picks. They've been looked at like the Holy Grail for so long. Here, we had a chance to get a quarterback who's already shown he can play really well in the league. He's a guy with resilience; you've got to be resilient playing at Vanderbilt and succeeding John Elway. So we felt like it was a good investment for us. Time will tell.''

That's the sign of a smart general manager. I didn't think Angelo had this kind of move in him, dealing a marginal starting quarterback and three high picks, leaving his team without a first-round pick for two straight years. But it's a gamble any smart GM would make.