CHICAGO _ For Ryan Pace, the trade was always about the return more than the price.
Last April, the Bears and their general manager needed a new franchise quarterback. It was long overdue.
A quarterback who would give the team direction and shape its identity.
A quarterback who would position the Bears for sustained success, as Drew Brees did for Pace's Saints more than a decade ago.
A quarterback who represented hope, one promising enough for ownership to continue believing in the NFL's youngest GM during a rebuilding effort that still has not produced progress in the standings.
So with the clock ticking on the 49ers and the second pick in the 2017 draft, Pace traded four picks to them in exchange for one, unwilling to risk losing out to another quarterback-needy team that might have eyes on trading up.
And with that, Pace got his man: North Carolina quarterback Mitch Trubisky.
Now, fast-forward one year, through Trubisky's 12 rookie starts and the Bears' subsequent coaching change. The trade finally has a player attached to every draft pick involved.
And not just the four picks the Bears traded to the 49ers. As it turned out, the initial trade was a rock in the pond.
The ripple effect, when it finally calmed Saturday, the last day of the 2018 draft, expanded the trade's reach to 14 players and six teams.
Now the comprehensive balance sheet can be written into NFL annals, a time capsule of sorts to be unearthed in a few years for final judgment.
"Sometimes with these trades ... there can be win-win scenarios," Pace said two days before the 2018 draft. "There's always this fear that someone is going to get the short end of the stick. Well, if you're thorough with your research, and (the other GMs) are, too, there can be win-win scenarios in these trades."
Pace then was asked whether he believes his trade for Trubisky qualifies as a win-win _ as if there were any mystery about his answer, given how the Bears have spent the offseason building around their second-year quarterback.
"Yeah," Pace said, "because we got (the) player we were excited about who's a franchise quarterback."
Here we break down the returns on the initial trade between the Bears and 49ers, as well as the subsequent trades in which the Bears' picks were packaged.
