With starting and backup jobs vacuumed up in the opening days of free agency, the Bears faced a soft market for Fields and pressure to move him before the draft so that Williams could arrive with a clean slate. That’s how you turn the 11th overall pick into a sixth round draft pick. General manager Ryan Poles had to make the deal, of that there is no debate, but the question that will always hang over the Bears is what they might have gotten if they had agreed to a trade earlier or what they could have gotten if they had traded Fields before last year’s draft and selected C.J. Stroud instead.
If the Bears got only a conditional sixth-round pick for Fields, who played reasonably well last season, what can the Jets hope to get in a trade for Zach Wilson, whom they want to trade with even fewer backup jobs available?
When he wanted out of Pittsburgh after the Steelers signed Wilson, he was traded to the Eagles — who have a superstar starting quarterback with a lucrative contract, giving Pickett almost no chance to be the starter, barring a serious injury to Jalen Hurts. Pickett’s departure created the opening for Fields to become the Steelers’ heir apparent.