Windy City Gridiron
After an 0-2 start to the 2025 season, things are looking pretty bleak for the Bears right now.
Granted, it’s extremely early in the year. The Bears have plenty of time to turn things around, and they’ve played two talented teams in their first two matchups. However, since the NFL playoffs expanded in 2020, 38 of the 43 teams to start the year 0-2 have missed the playoffs, giving Chicago historically about a 12% chance to make the postseason.
Me being the draft-minded individual I am, I wanted to use this window of sadness and despair to share some of my findings for the 2026 NFL Draft class.
For the sake of this exercise, I will be using the PFF mock draft simulator to simulate the other teams around me. I like to mix things up in terms of which tools I use for these mock drafts to provide different insights and draft orders this early in the season.
Here’s where PFF has the Bears picking in their mock draft simulator:
Chargers receive: TE Cole Kmet
Bears receive: 2026 fourth-round pick (No. 121 overall)
Cole Kmet is still a productive tight end in the NFL, and he has a respectable 60 receiving yards through his first two games in 2025. But the Bears don’t need him on a pricier contract after selecting Colston Loveland with the No. 10 overall pick. A trade would save Chicago $8.4 million in cap space in the 2026 offseason, and at 26 years old, he should still be a solid starter for a few more years.
The Chargers are a competitive playoff team in need of an upgrade at tight end. They’ve had a solid passing attack this year with Keenan Allen and Quentin Johnston as complementary weapons. Kmet would give Los Angeles a reliable tight end who can work himself open underneath as a security blanket for Justin Herbert.
Looking at recent tight end trades, this feels like fair value for both teams. Darren Waller got traded to the Giants for a third-round pick coming off an injured 2022 season with inferior production to Kmet’s typical numbers, even though Waller reached higher heights than Kmet did. A fourth-round pick feels like a good value for Kmet, and the Bears could use that extra money on bigger needs like the offensive or defensive lines, cornerback, or running back.
Within the simulation, these are the players who were selected with the eight picks before the Bears:
