By their very nature trades are exciting. It really doesn’t matter the sports. Football, baseball, basketball or hockey. Fans love trades because they represent something special. The potential of a franchise being turned around with a single stroke. It’s the ultimate high-stakes poker game. Did a team play the right hand or did they get caught bluffing?
No position brings that excitement to a higher fever pitch than the quarterbacks. Drafting or signing a great one is well and good. Trading for one? Nothing else in this business can feel quite like a true heist. The Bears should know this better than most teams. They’ve been trying to pull it off for decades.
The long and short of it is….well….not good. Here are the four major deals they’ve swung since the start of the Super Bowl era in 1966.
- Jack Concannon (1967)
- Cost: TE Mike Ditka
- Mike Phipps (1977)
- Cost: future 1st round pick
- Rick Mirer (1997)
- Cost: 1st round pick
- Jay Cutler (2009)
- Cost: 1st round pick, future 1st round pick, 3rd round pick, QB Kyle Orton
Not exactly a Hall of Fame cast. Cutler is by far the best of that bunch and that’s not saying much. Collectively between all four, the Bears amassed a total record of 82-82-1. That is the definition of average. What makes it so much worse is what they gave up in return for all those trades. A Hall of Fame tight end, four first round picks, a third round pick and a solid starting quarterback for what amounted to zero championships.
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So perhaps it’s fair to ask the question again. What exactly is convincing this team that their answer at the position lay via the trade market? It’s worth remembering that only three quarterbacks (Joe Theismann, Steve Young, Brett Favre) were acquired via trade and won a Super Bowl. All of them also have the same distinction of winning just one of them. Not only are the successes of this avenue rare, but they don’t last long either.
Whether it’s Jimmy Garoppolo, Tyrod Taylor, Kirk Cousins or somebody else the fact remains the same. The Chicago Bears quarterback trade history does nothing to indicate they are any more prepared to turn a pricey acquisition into a success than they were the previous four times they tried.
