Bears Draft 2021: Grade the Trade Round 2

Ryan Pace has a history of moving around in the second round. In 2016, he traded down in order to gain more draft capital and ended up selecting future Pro Bowler Cody Whitehair. In 2017, he traded down again to let Arizona draft Budda Baker (meanwhile, he picked up Adam Shaheen). In 2018, he traded up back into the second round in order to draft Anthony Miller after already drafting James Daniels. That’s why he didn’t have a pick in 2019, but the Khalil Mack trade also gave the Chicago Bears an extra second-rounder in 2020 (this turned into Cole Kmet). Got all that?

I hope so, because Chicago’s GM has moved again, this time getting the bodyguard to protect his investment from Day 1. The reported trade breaks down as follows—the Bears gave up #52, #83, and #204 in exchange for #39 and #151. This is a really interesting move, in that it leaves the Bears without a pick until the fifth round while having some needs to fill.

On paper, this isn’t a bad trade. The Rich Hill chart assigns the the picks acquired by Chicago a total value of 165 points. Meanwhile, the picks Chicago gave up? 165 points. The Johnson chart values are less forgiving, but not by much. Pace sent away 565 points and only acquired 541 points. Still, that’s only a 4% overpay and it is well within the range of how business is typically done.

Ultimately, Pace traded up high into the second to get a tackle with a first-round grade on most boards, in order to protect the massive investment he made the day before.

Grade the Trade: B-

Grade the Player: I’ll leave that to fans over the next three years.

This seems like the move Pace had to make, given all givens. Still, what do fans think?

You want even more about Teven Jenkins? Then check out Robert Schmitz on his Bear With Me podcast for some instant reaction, and he’s joined by our Draftnik Trifecta of Jacob Infante, EJ Snyder, and Danny Meehan.