Proposed Bears trade unnecessarily jeopardizes Caleb Williams

It would appear the Bears have come across this situation and solution again in a mock draft conducted by Pro Football Network's Jacob Infante with trades. His solution to their potential contract negotiation with left tackle Braxton Jones is to trade him to the Seattle Seahawks for a third-round pick.

For Seattle, the move makes sense in a way because of their need to rebuild their offensive line. For the Bears, it's a little less certain.

The mock has the Bears taking taking Missouri's Armand Membou at No. 10 to use at left tackle.

There are issues with such a move.

1. The injury

Is Seattle giving up a third-round pick to acquire a tackle coming off a broken ankle? Players with injuries of this type often move around in free agency, and the injury often makes a difference in cash. It's not as common for players coming off season-ending injuries to be desired talent in a trade. Jones had his broken ankle late in the year and won't be ready for the start of OTAs after his cast recently came off.

Perhaps he's ready for June work or the start of training camp. It's a big leap for Seattle or any other team to trade now for Jones.

2. The timing of a trade

If the Bears drafted an offensive tackle to start there or decided to use Kiran Amegadjie, it would seem they'd need OTAs and minicamps to look fully at their options for the position to know they had someone who could be at least as effective as Jones would be coming off an injury. For that reason, it appears far more likely they'd make such a trade heading into camp or later than now before the draft.

If it turned out they couldn't rely yet on their available replacements and had to keep Jones  then or even after the trade deadline, they could always benefit with a compensatory pick after losing a starter in free agency.

3. The option itself

Membou would be a good alternative at guard or right tackle.

However, he played left tackle in zero games for his three-year college career. Bringing him in could mean the Bears have two tackles playing new positions in 2024. 

Darnell Wright at least had playing experience in college at left tackle, taking 934 plays there as opposed to 1,452 in college at right tackle and two full seasons with the Bears. Moving him and using Membou at a familiar right tackle spot would probably make more sense, if any of this makes sense.

Or they take the chance with Membou there, a player with shorter 33 1/2-inch arms but who does have great athleticism, speed and power.

The idea of trading Jones comes with too much uncertainty attached on either end and the injury from last year itself makes it seem unlikely the Bears could ever acquire a third-round pick for their starting left tackle.

This is an option that also includes letting Amegadjie try to win the spot in camp, relying on his limited experience from last year but also his 36-inch arms.

All around, this is a thought with some merit but with plenty of uncertainty attached to it. When you're messing around at starting tackle you'd like a little more certainty involved.

Switching players' positions is also a problem as with a move like this they are turning an issue at one starting position into an issue at two of them.

Best Option

Just keeping Jones as their safety net with young tackles like Amegadjie or a draft pick coming in to battle for the spot makes far more sense, with Jones' loss via free agency next year and the compensatory pick they could reap being their baseline return.

The same would be true about a trade just before the deadline in October, as both options lessen the amount of uncertainty regarding one very critical aspect of the 2025 season.

That would be avoiding gambles with protecting Caleb Williams.