(670 The Score) In an in-depth interview on the Parkins & Spiegel Show on Wednesday, former Bears director of player personnel Josh Lucas detailed the organization’s mindset in bypassing on quarterback Patrick Mahomes in the 2017 NFL Draft.
In an infamous decision that’s haunted the franchise, the Bears instead selected quarterback Mitchell Trubisky after trading up from No. 3 overall to No. 2. Trubisky played four rather uninspiring seasons in Chicago, while Mahomes has already won two MVP awards and two Super Bowls in his first six NFL seasons after the Chiefs landed him at No. 10 in the 2017 NFL Draft.
Lucas worked for the Bears from 2015-’21, serving as one of then-general manager Ryan Pace’s most trusted lieutenants. As Lucas tells it, Trubisky and Mahomes were both impressive in displaying their football intelligence in sit-down settings leading up to the draft.
“Night before a game on Saturday night with Mitch on the (whiteboard), he’ll blow you away,” Lucas said. “It’s fluid intelligence. As soon as the bullets start flying, that kind of intelligence is completely different than regurgitating all your plays, all your checks, if you get this hot read – he’ll kill that stuff all day.”
The Bears found Trubisky to be “calm, cool, relaxed” in their dinner with him, Lucas said. Mahomes was “very high energy, anxious,” Lucas said. Not that any of it mattered.
“Patrick had a hard time in those settings coming out of college because he was so nervous and so jittery,” Lucas said. “But the bottom line is we don’t base anything off those dinners unless there’s something that’s just a huge outlier. You’re going off of film, pro day, measurables, testing, interviewing coaches, all that stuff.
“They both did great at the dinners. We didn’t get in the car like, ‘We’re taking this guy because did you see the way he ate his steak?’”
Lucas emphasized the Bears “were good with both those quarterbacks,” but they liked Trubisky more so they wanted to act on their conviction in him when they received information that another team wanted to trade up to No. 2 overall to land Trubisky. 49ers general manager John Lynch didn’t sucker the Bears into believing he had a different (and perhaps fake) suitor ready to trade up to No. 2 overall, Lucas said. Lucas indicated the Bears received that information from “other people.”
“We just took the wrong guy,” Lucas said.
A big part of what the Bears didn’t correctly predict at the time was how Trubisky and Mahomes would fare when pocket got chaotic in the NFL.
“I did not think some of the crazy stuff he can do off-script would translate to consistent NFL production,” Lucas said of Mahomes. “Patrick Mahomes, he’s the best quarterback I’ve ever seen in the NFL. He is incredible.
“It’s magic. He’s a unicorn. You can rank the top five quarterbacks in the league. There’s a big space between one and two. He’s incredible.”
To the best of Lucas’ knowledge, the Bears never indicated to Mahomes they would select him, contrary to what Patrick Mahomes Sr. once said about his son’s interactions with Chicago.
“Up until 24 hours before the draft, we did not know who Cleveland was taking (at No. 1),” Lucas said. “We knew it was going to be Mitch or Myles Garrett. We knew that information. They made their final decision. From what I was told, the coaches wanted Garrett. The personnel people wanted Mitch. They decided to take Myles Garrett. From that point on, we knew we were going to get Mitch, whether it was at No. 3 or No. 2. Prior to 24 hours before the draft, we knew there was a scenario where we would take Patrick Mahomes.”
That scenario was the Browns hypothetically taking Trubisky at No. 1 overall. If the Bears were to go after Mahomes then, they could've looked to have traded back from No. 3 overall and still nabbed him, Lucas said.
“So the scenario was who do you take at No. 3 – do you take a position player or do you take Patrick?” Lucas said. “Or do you try to trade back knowing Patrick probably won’t go in the top 10? That was the scenario.”