How Ryan Pace Used Nathan Peterman To Hide Draft Intentions

The Ryan Pace Nathan Peterman angle was almost a thing. Wait, what? Backtrack for a second. Chicago now has a quarterback of the future. Love it or hate, Chicago sent shock waves through the football world when they took Mitchell Trubisky #2 overall after trading up with San Francisco. Only it wasn't just a surprise to the fans and media. Apparently the Bears caught all the other NFL teams off guard too. Draft analyst Tom Pelissero of USA Today revealed some fascinating information about how the first round action went down. Perhaps his most eye-opening revelation was regarding the Bears move for Trubisky. As it turns out not only did the team have fans and media fooled as to their intention, they had the rest of the league in the dark as well. They were so effective as it turns out that everybody assumed they were planning to take a different quarterback all together.

"The Bears began plotting to move up for Mitchell Trubisky early in the process. Somehow, there wasn’t even a whiff of that publicly before they had moved up a spot and were on the clock at No. 2. Some in the league even believed as of Wednesday night they were targeting Pittsburgh QB Nate Peterman in the second round instead."

It's well-documented that the Bears liked Peterman ever since they coached him at the Senior Bowl. He's considered another Dak Prescott-type of quarterback. Not quite talented enough for the first round but could be a starter in the league that's available later in the draft. It was a masterful deception plan that worked to perfection.

How good the Ryan Pace Nathan Peterman diversion really was

How well? Just watch the pick again via the NFL Network broadcast. Not a single one of the panel including experts Mike Mayock and Daniel Jeremiah had anything to say regarding Trubisky. They were too busy trying to process what just happened. [video width="1280" height="720" mp4="https://www.sportsmockery.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2017-NFL-Draft-Tracker-NFLcom.mp4"][/video] Say this for Pace and Fox, they sure know how to run a tight ship. They had everybody guessing. Local media were absolutely certain the quarterback would be Deshaun Watson. By draft time they were convinced QB was off the board entirely at #3 and it would likely be a top defensive player. Not only was that wrong, but the Bears hammered home how ill-informed they were by trading up to get a different QB entirely. Naturally the boo birds came down when it was revealed how much they gave up to make the move, but by now people should know. Quarterbacks are expensive in this day and age. If you want the best one on the board, odds are you'll have to give up extra to get him. So in answer to this here's one last little piece of draft trivia. How many picks have the Bears made in the third and fourth rounds since 2000? That would be 42. Now how many of those picks ended up reaching at least one Pro Bowl in their career? A whopping total of.............three. Lance Briggs, Henry Melton and Nathan Vasher being the trio. That's not exactly a high hit rate for picks deemed so valuable. Sure there's always a chance of finding a hidden gem, but it doesn't happen as often as people think. Rather than settle for three likely average players, Pace decided to roll the dice on getting a franchise QB.