2024 NFL Mock Draft: Patriots trade up to No. 1 for quarterback, Steelers strengthen secondary

Caleb Williams announced that he won’t play in USC’s bowl game, which means that, barring the truly unforeseen, he’s likely taken his final collegiate snap. It also means that in 142 days from the time that I’m writing this, he has a great chance to be the first player taken in the 2024 NFL Draft. In mock draft 4.0, I still have Williams as QB1, but I have the Patriots, who currently have the No. 2 pick, moving up one spot to get their quarterback. This also means that the Bears move down, pass on Williams, and are sticking with Justin Fields.

(A quick aside, and this will likely become boilerplate for any and all rebuilding teams who take a young QB: Please — and I can’t stress this enough — make sure you build around them. Solidify the offensive line, make sure the running game is at least replacement level, and do whatever it takes to find receivers who can win at the line of scrimmage. I know, easier said than done because of the salary cap and the inherent uncertainty of player evaluation and development, but if you want to know what happens when you fail to do any of these things, look no further than the 2023 Carolina Panthers. This concludes the public-service announcement.)

Because you love trade details, here they are:

• Chicago gets: New England’s 2024 first (No. 2), 2024 second (No. 34), 2024 fourth (102), 2025 third
• New England gets: Chicago’s 20024 first (No. 1).

This is based on what the Bears had to give up in 2017 to move from No. 3 to No. 2 to get Mitchell Trubisky. More importantly, this hypothetical means Chicago has picks 2, 5, 34, 71, 102, 104 in the ’24 draft.

As for sticking with Fields, at least in this mock draft, here’s the thinking: First, this is going to be a talking point for the final five weeks of the regular season because Fields still has to prove he’s the guy in Chicago. In part because he wasn’t drafted by GM Ryan Poles, in part because the Bears don’t want a repeat of 2017, when they passed on Patrick Mahomes and took Trubisky. They have to get this right.

But for our purposes here, let’s assume Fields is the guy in Chicago; the team has plenty of cap space so they could pick up his fifth-year option this summer — if they choose to. They could also let Fields play out the season and reevaluate after the 2025 season. In the near term, by trading down to No. 2, not only does the team continue to add draft picks, it also positions itself to help Fields by taking Ohio State wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. And I always come back to how important an other-worldly wideout can be for a young QB — see what Tyreek Hill did for Tua Tagovailoa, A.J. Brown for Jalen Hurts, and Stefon Diggs for Josh Allen.

Adding Harrison to a room with D.J. Moore, Darnell Mooney and Tyler Scott, along with tight end Cole Kmet certainly makes you think this could be a playoff-caliber team in ’24, especially with the Bears targeting an edge rusher with their other first-rounder.

Again, we’ll talk this to death in the coming months, but if nothing else, it’s fun (and maybe a little instructive) to run through some possible scenarios. And that brings us to QB2 and QB3 in this mock draft.

Do I think Jayden Daniels gets drafted ahead of Drake Maye? No, not as we sit here, but there are people in the league who didn’t immediately shut down the idea of Daniels going off the board before Maye when I brought it up. And there’s no disputing that Daniels had the better season, and the strides he’s made since transferring from Arizona State have been big ones. His game reminds me a lot of Lamar Jackson.

Maye, meanwhile, is a legit talent, no doubt about it, but for me, his comp is a spectrum, where Trevor Lawrence is the ceiling and Daniel Jones is the floor. In other words, you can’t throw him into any situation and expect miracles. This isn’t revolutionary — basically, there’s only one C.J. Stroud and every other rookie quarterback needs help (this is only a slight exaggeration).

OK, we have four months to sort all this out. For now, let’s get to all 32 picks.

For more draft coverage, you can hear in-depth analysis twice a week on “With the First Pick” — our year-round NFL Draft podcast with NFL Draft analyst Ryan Wilson and former Vikings general manager Rick Spielman. You can find “With the First Pick” wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.