For the first time in a very long time, the Chicago Bears won't enter an NFL Draft with questions at quarterback. Caleb Williams, last year's first-overall pick, is undoubtedly the Bears' franchise passer for the foreseeable future, which helps GM Ryan Poles' quest to land the best blue-chip first-round prospect available.
But for the Bears to get the best prospect at No. 10 overall in the 2025 NFL Draft, they'll need a quarterback or two to come off the board before they're on the clock.
This year's Draft features two quarterbacks who could get selected before Chicago's pick: Miami's Cam Ward and Colorado's Shedeur Sanders. Ward is the favorite to be selected first overall, and while Sanders' draft stock has cooled since the NFL Combine, there are plenty of quarterback-needy teams who have no choice but to value him as a first-round prospect.
One of those teams was the Las Vegas Raiders, who hold the sixth overall pick. But that all changed Friday night, when the Raiders traded a third-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft to the Seattle Seahawks for Geno Smith.
Geno Smith trade complicates Chicago Bears first-round plans for 2025 NFL Draft
Now that Smith is a Raider, there's virtually no chance they'll select a quarterback at No. 6 overall. This means a player whom Bears fans were hoping would slide to No. 10 -- Ashton Jeanty, for example -- is much less likely to fall.
It doesn't mean a quarterback-needy team won't trade into the top 10 for Sanders; there are a handful of teams with major quarterback questions who could decide they can't risk exiting the first round without a QB-next. But the chances of two quarterbacks getting selected in the first nine picks have gone way down.
According to NFL.com, the Raiders' top-five draft needs (before the Geno Smith trade) were: (1) QB, (2) WR, (3) RB, (4) CB, and (5) DT.
Now that quarterback is crossed off that list (for the first round, at least), the Raiders could decide to pivot to wide receiver, where Arizona's Tetairoa McMillan is likely to be the highest-rated pass-catcher still on the board. If the Raiders select McMillan, then no harm, no foul for the Chicago Bears. They're not in the first-round wide receiver market.
But if Michigan's Mason Graham experiences a first-round slide out of the top five, the Raiders, who need help along the defensive line, become another team on the list of threats to snag Graham away from the Bears.
There are still nearly 50 days and an entire 2025 NFL free agency period before this year's Draft arrives, so more changes to the top-10 landscape are coming. But Geno Smith getting traded to the Las Vegas Raiders is a big blow to the Chicago Bears' hopes of getting enriched by a prospect who has an unexpected fall down the top-10 picks.
