This week, the No. 1 overall picks from the 2023 and 2024 NFL Drafts will be under the bright lights of primetime. Bryce Young and the Panthers open Week 8 with a crucial "Thursday Night Football" game against the Packers, and Caleb Williams and the Bears close out the week with a "Monday Night Football" showdown against the Seahawks. Both quarterbacks will face tough road tests against conference foes with postseason ambitions.

And both quarterbacks are forever intertwined. Though Young is forever tied to 2023 No. 2 overall pick C.J. Stroud, and Williams is forever tied to the loaded 2024 class that included Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye, Young and Williams are a byproduct of one another. 

In March 2023, the Panthers moved heaven and earth to jump from the No. 9 pick to the No. 1 pick, an all-time blockbuster that shaped not only the two franchises but the league as a whole. With Young hoping to get Carolina back on track Thursday, we look back on the trade.

The trade

The Panthers were one of several teams exploring a trade up for a quarterback, ESPN's Adam Schefter reported at the time. Carolina won out with a huge package.

At the time, the Bears were committed to Justin Fields as their starting quarterback, even though they would have had plenty of options in the draft had they chosen that direction: Young, Stroud, Anthony Richardson and Will Levis were considered among the top prospects.

But Fields, the No. 11 pick in 2021, had only been in the league two years. The results had been poor, but so, too, were the surroundings. Fields' top receiver in 2022 was Darnell Mooney, who failed to crack 500 receiving yards. Fields, who nearly broke the quarterback rushing record in 2022, would get one more year, and bringing Moore into the equation was crucial for Chicago. He was coming off a down 2022 season but had cracked 1,100 receiving yards each of the three years prior.

Panthers' disastrous 2023 sets stage for huge Bears win

The Panthers had been a mess ever since David Tepper bought them back in 2018. Tepper fired Ron Rivera midseason in 2019 and hired Matt Rhule in 2020, only to fire Rhule early in the 2022 season. In between, he fired GM Marty Hurney in 2020 and hired Scott Fitterer to fill that role, creating no coach-GM alignment. The Panthers went 29-53 across Tepper's first five years of ownership.

They also cycled through quarterbacks after Cam Newton's decline and eventual departure. From 2018-22, Carolina had a different leading passer every season: Newton in 2018, Kyle Allen in 2019, Teddy Bridgewater in 2020, Sam Darnold in 2021 and Baker Mayfield in 2022.

When Carolina moved up to No. 1 in 2023, it didn't know who it would take, but it thought the move "gave it the most options,"  according to Schefter.

"Should the Panthers fall in love with a couple of quarterbacks, they would consider trading back a spot or two, according to a league source," a story by ESPN's Courtney Cronin and David Newton read.

The Panthers ultimately landed on Young, though later reports said that coach Frank Reich, hired months earlier, preferred Stroud. While Tepper adamantly defended that the entire group was aligned on Young, he also curiously said that wasn't always the expectation.

"Originally, we thought we were going to the No. 2 pick, and we thought we'd get C.J.," Tepper said. "We thought the Texans were going to take Bryce. And listen, we preferred Bryce. He was our No. 1 choice. We had a lot of conviction."

That mess paled in comparison to the mess playing out on the field in Young's rookie year. Young struggled mightily, and an underwhelming offensive line and receiving corps didn't help. Young took 62 sacks, and his 4.6 net yards per attempt was — and still is — the worst since 2010 Jimmy Clausen.

A collection of highly knowledgeable offensive minds — Reich, offensive coordinator Thomas Brown and offensive line coach James Campen — never melded. Reich called plays at the start, turned play-calling duties over Brown, then took them back and then got fired after a 1-11 start.

While all this was unfolding, the Bears were struggling, too. But they were about to cash in.

Bears get Caleb Williams as part of huge haul

Chicago used its two 2023 picks acquired in the deal on OT Darnell Wright (after moving back one spot) and CB Tyrique Stevenson, both of whom had some major ups and downs as rookies.

But it all revolved around the quarterback: Fields continued to struggle with negative plays in 2023, an issue that has defined his career. He also dealt with some injuries. Moore had a career year — 96 catches, 1,364 yards — but there were massive issues elsewhere. Chicago finished 7-10, an improvement from their 3-14 mark in 2022, but it was clear Fields wasn't the answer.

There was light at the end of the tunnel. The Panthers finished 2-15. One year after trading up for the No. 1 pick, they had earned the No. 1 pick themselves ... and that pick was on the way to Chicago. In came Caleb Williams. The Bears also got him a wide receiver, Rome Odunze, with their own first-round pick (No. 9 overall).

Williams then struggled through many of the rookie-year issues Young had dealt with. Poor surroundings, from play caller to weapons to offensive line, doomed the former USC star. Williams showed far, far more flashes than Young had as a rookie, but it wasn't pretty. He took 68 sacks, which remains tied for third-most in a single season. Like Young, Williams' coach (Matt Eberflus) got fired in-season.

That set the stage for one of the best hires of recent memory, and it brings us up to today.

Caleb Williams becomes a star under Ben Johnson; Bryce Young shows improvement

It remains incredible what improvements in coaching and surroundings can do for a young quarterback. Williams took a huge step in 2025 under new coach Ben Johnson and is in the midst of another huge step in the duo's second year together.

It took longer for Young, and it hasn't been close to the same leap. Still, it's undeniable that he is a night-and-day different player from early in his career. He struggled again in 2024 — and was even benched — under new coach Dave Canales. But he finished the season strong and was better in 2025. 

He is currently playing the best ball of his career under new offensive coordinator Brad Idzik, who took over play-calling duties this offseason. He's not lighting the league on fire, but he's providing viable play for a team with its eyes on a return to the playoffs.

Caleb Williams, Bryce Young rankings this season

Williams

Young

EPA per dropback

4th

16th

Completion percentage

2nd

29th

Net yards per attempt

7th

12th

TD-Int

5th

12th

It's clear that Williams is the better of the No. 1 picks; he is on the path to superstardom. In turn, the Bears won this trade by a landslide. It was all set off by the Panthers' awful 2023. If Carolina had been merely bad or mediocre that year, maybe the Bears would have drafted J.J. McCarthy or Bo Nix or Michael Penix Jr., and this trade would look a lot different. Instead, the Panthers were the worst team in the league and handed the Bears the top pick in the draft.

It's a similar situation to what's unfolding from the Sauce Gardner trade last year. The Colts sent their 2025 and 2026 first-round picks to the Jets. Now, the Colts are crumbling, and New York would have the No. 7 pick, courtesy of Indianapolis, if the draft started today. It very well could become a top-five pick by season's end.

Where things go from here

Getting Williams was just the start for Chicago. From the 2023 class, Wright has turned into one of the best tackles in the NFL and is an absolute mauler in Johnson's run game. Stevenson has had some ups and downs but remains a key contributor. The 2024 fourth-round pick the Bears acquired when trading back for Wright in 2023 turned into Tory Taylor, who ranks eighth in net yards per punt this year.

The trade was finally completed at the 2025 draft, when the Bears used a second-round pick on Burden, who is also looking like a potential star. He leads the Bears in catches (35) and yards (491) this year and has 225 yards in the last two weeks after Williams came back from a hamstring injury.

But the trade continued to pay dividends for Chicago even this offseason, when the Bears traded Moore to the Bills and got a second-round pick in return. Chicago eventually turned that into third-round tight end Sam Roush, fifth-round linebacker Keyshaun Elliott and a 2026 fourth-round pick. Moore's time in Chicago can be viewed with mixed results. He had his worst year last year, when the Bears were ascending, but getting a second-round pick in return for him was tremendous value.

For a while, as Young's career seemed on the brink, this looked like a complete obliteration by the Bears. As Young has improved, and Tepper has stopped meddling so much, the Panthers can look back feeling maybe a tiny fraction better, or at least cope better. Still, this was a landslide victory for Chicago, one that completely changed the franchise's fortunes and will continue to do so for years to come.