Bears Trade Up, Ashton Jeanty Falls Out of Top 10 in Latest NFL Mock Draft

The Chicago Bears are in an interesting spot as a franchise, making their potential draft strategy fascinating to discuss. They enter this year's draft with the tenth overall pick, with multiple predicted directions they can go based on mock drafts.

One potential they could go that hasn't been heavily explored is trading up in the NFL draft. In this recent mock draft from Ryan Wilson of CBS Sports, he has the Bears trading up for one of the top prospects in the draft.

At fourth overall, the New England Patriots have become a popular trade down candidate. They seem like a team that is only really interested in grabbing Travis Hunter or possibly Abdul Carter, given their wide variety of needs and lack of top-end talent.

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In this mock, they decide that losing out on Hunter is enough to trade down, trading from fourth to 10th to allow the Bears to jump up and select Carter, the best pass rusher in the draft.

While Hunter probably is the ideal pick for the Patriots, it seems unlikely they would trade down and pass on Carter given his potential talent at a premium position. However, with just Carter left on the board, a trade down is certainly possible.

Another fascinating part of this mock draft is Ashton Jeanty falling to pick No. 20 to the Denver Broncos. Just as Hunter would be the ideal pick for the Patriots, Jeanty seems to be the ideal pick for the Broncos, making this a dream scenario, albeit an unlikely one.

Most mock drafts have Jeanty going sixth overall to the Raiders, 10th overall to the Bears (who are now at four in this mock), or the Cowboys at 12th overall. There have even been talks ramping up of Omarion Hampton going in the top 12, meaning the first running back off the board at 20 seems very unlikely.

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It would match up with typical thoughts surrounding the running back position, however, and would also make a bit of sense given the depth of the position in this year's class.

While this year's draft seems to have the potential to be very unpredictable, it is hard to imagine it being surprising when it involves two of its top prospects in Abdul Carter and Ashton Jeanty. Both seem like locks for the top 10, and it is hard to imagine so many teams clearly choosing to pass on both, as is done in this mock draft.

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