To QB or not to QB: Bears mum; Falcons not so much … It is always interesting at this time of year to see if the GMs of team’s with early draft picks give away any hints as to what their team might be thinking about in their end-of-season pressers. Of course, the general rule is that that they don’t usually give away much and that was the case with Chicago’s Ryan Poles, whose Bears have the first pick this coming April, who claimed that they were ‘wide-open to anything’ and that all options were on the table as he and his staff have to decide whether to stick with Justin Fields at QB and perhaps trade the #1 pick for a package of picks and build up the team around him or use the pick to take a QB like USC’s Caleb Williams. Poles did indicate that he thought Fields played better this season, but indicated that the Bears were ‘in a unique situation’ with the #1 pick. However, while Poles didn’t give away much other than to say that the Bears would have to be ‘blown away’ to take a QB, the feeling around the league is that they would be crazy not to trade the pick for an elite prospect like Williams as Field, a 62% passer this year, is still a below average QB. Poles, though, did indicate that he will certainly be fielding calls regarding the pick. One team that the Bears can certainly expect to hear from is Atlanta after team owner Arthur Blank said the Falcons just had to get better at the position after the experiment with 2022 3rd rounder Desmond Ridder fizzled this fall. However, the Falcons who pick 8th aren’t likely to get one of the this year’s top guys so may have to try and move up, although getting into the top three as the teams at the top of the board all look like they’d like a QB themselves. The Giants, who have the 6th pick, were also a team that was thought to be interested in drafting a QB early this year, especially with the season-ending ACL suffered by incumbent starter Daniel Jones. And Giants GM Joe Schoen indicated at this presser that the team still plans to do ‘something’ at the position this off-season, although it sounded like they would be more interested in a veteran free agent type who would give them a chance to win some games early in the season if Jones wasn’t ready for the start of the campaign.
