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When the Bears selected Luther Burden III with the 39th pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, they didn’t pick just a weapon with great playmaking upside. They also completed one of the biggest draft trades in NFL history.
Revisiting the Bears and Panthers 2023 Draft Trade
On March 10, 2023, the NFL world was flipped on its head when the Chicago Bears traded away the number one overall pick in the draft for a massive haul from the Carolina Panthers. In return for the first pick, the Bears received the ninth pick, three additional picks, and receiver D.J. Moore. It has been two years since that trade went down, so let’s take a look at the trade since it has been completed.
The Trade
Carolina Panthers receive:
- Pick No. 1 in 2023 NFL Draft (Bryce Young)
Chicago Bears receive:
- Pick No. 9 in 2023 NFL Draft (Darnell Wright)
- Pick No. 61 in 2023 NFL Draft (Tyrique Stevenson)
- 2024 1st Round Pick (Caleb Williams)
- 2025 2nd Round Pick (Luther Burden III)
- WR D.J. Moore
Who Won the Trade?
The Bears won this trade. However, most don’t understand that this trade was so one-sided that it may have just jump-started a potential dynasty.
That may seem premature to say, but the pieces of this trade laid the foundation for the Chicago Bears to enter a possible “golden era” of football with how their roster has been built. One may argue that the value of Moore, Williams, or Wright individually would be the same or greater than the value of Young. The fact that Chicago landed all three AND two more players? It’s nearly unfathomable.
Bears/Panthers Trade Analysis
The Panthers chose to select Bryce Young with the pick they traded for. Young has had a very up-and-down start to his career in Carolina. His rookie year was difficult to judge. The poor coaching and talent around him didn’t give him much of a chance in his first season as a pro.
In his second season, he was benched for Andy Dalton a few games into the year. The new coaching staff claimed it was to give him more time to develop. Most disagreed with the decision, but the Panthers remained confident that it would benefit Young in the long run.
Dalton was a below-average starter at best in his time with the Panthers, and Young would later come back to start in week 8. From that point on, Young looked like a completely different quarterback. Despite the lackluster talent around him, he looked much more confident and played with a swagger we hadn’t seen from him to that point in his career. The back half of the Panthers’ season gave fans much to look forward to in the future.
On the other side, the Bears took Darnell Wright with the ninth pick in the 2023 draft. Wright has shown flashes of being a cornerstone right tackle for Chicago. He’s been healthy a majority of his career and has still been solid when playing less than 100%.
The 2023 second-round pick would turn out to be Tyrique Stevenson. Stevenson has been inconsistent with the Bears as he’s shown glimpses of solid corner play next to Jaylon Johnson. Unfortunately, he’s also had some issues with focusing on and off the field. He was seen celebrating before and during the play the Commanders ran a hail mary and won the game on. The following week, he was reportedly leaving practice early after Matt Eberflus told him he was being benched the following week. He will likely start again in 2025, but his role with the team is far from guaranteed.
Arguably the biggest part of the trade was the 2024 first-round pick. It turned out to be the first overall pick in the 2024 draft. The Bears selected Caleb Williams to hopefully be their quarterback of the future. His rookie year had up-and-down results, but ultimately can be chalked up to bad coaching and inconsistent offensive line play. He’s been set up to have some massive improvements in 2025 with additions to the offensive line and massive upgrades in the coaching department.
The last pick involved in the trade turned into Luther Burden III. He’s shown a lot of potential as a slot weapon at the college level and will play a key role within Ben Johnson‘s offense.
The final piece of the trade was D.J. Moore. He struggled finding any consistency from the guys throwing him the ball in Carolina, but this is the first time in his NFL career he will have the same starting quarterback in back to back seasons. He was improperly utilized in 2024, so hopefully Johnson’s offense can get him back towards his 2023 production.
More must-reads:
- The Big Five: NFL’s biggest surprises of the 2025 season — for better or worse
- Browns HC appears in no rush to give Shedeur Sanders promotion after Joe Flacco trade
- The 'Most NFL QB two-rushing-TD games' quiz
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TODAY'S BEST
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