The Chicago Bears are 5-1 and in first place in the NFC North, but it still feels like there are several positions on the roster that can use an upgrade before the NFL’s trade deadline on November 3.
One such position is wide receiver, where the Bears could use more of a straight-line speed threat after six weeks of a failed Ted Ginn experiment.
Ginn has just three catches for 40 yards this season.
Rookie Darnell Mooney has been a pleasant surprise and is entrenched as the Bears’ No. 2 pass-catcher, while Anthony Miller is barely holding on to his gig as a rotational player. The rest of Chicago’s receivers are big-bodied types who don’t offer third-level speed.
Enter former Bengals first-rounder, John Ross, who expressed his desire for a trade from Cincinnati this week, according to NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo.
From @gmfb: #Bengals WR John Ross approached the team about a trade recently. The speedster, in the last year of his rookie deal, hasn’t been playing much of late and wants a fresh start if that’s going to continue being the case. pic.twitter.com/0LbfY9ODb4
— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) October 20, 2020
Ross has been a disappointment since entering the league as the ninth overall pick in the 2017 draft, but he has had some flashes of big-play ability over the last four seasons. He averaged over 18 yards per catch last season and recorded seven touchdowns in 2018.
Ross is buried on the Bengals’ depth chart and has just two catches for 17 yards in three games played this year. He won’t be back in Cincinnati in 2021, and the Bengals should be willing to part ways with him at a discount price that’s somewhere in the range of a late Day-3 pick in next year’s draft.
Adding a player like Ross, whose 4.22 40-yard dash at the 2017 combine is still hard to believe, would instantly give the Bears a legitimate downfield weapon that’s been lacking since Matt Nagy took the head job in 2018.
The low-risk, high-reward use of a 2021 sixth- or seveth-round pick for Ross makes way too much sense for the Bears. The only question that remains is whether GM Ryan Pace thinks so, too.
