Colin Cowherd on the Chicago Bears, screengrab via FS1
FoxNFLBy Awful Announcing Staff on

Colin Cowherd has built a lengthy career as a national sports talk radio host at both ESPN and Fox, but sometimes the simple facts of what is currently going on in the sports world seems to elude him. Never has that been more true than when he tried analyzing the Chicago Bears on Friday.

Earlier this season, Cowherd pontificated about the Angels potentially trading Shohei Ohtani for draft picks until he was informed live on the air that it was impossible to trade players for picks under the rules of Major League Baseball. And if you’ve been fading his picks, you may have turned yourself into a millionaire.

Friday’s example may be the most bizarre Cowherd head-scratcher, though, considering how the drama surrounding the order of the 2024 NFL Draft may have been the only significant storyline for the Thursday Night football game between the Bears and Carolina Panthers. Thanks to a trade involving last year’s #1 overall selection, the Bears own the Panthers’ first round pick for 2024. After the Bears beat the Panthers on Thursday, they helped themselves by putting Carolina at #1 overall for the moment with a 1-8 record and with Chicago slotting in at #5.

All of this is apparently news to Cowherd, who proclaimed the Bears were out of the sweepstakes for star QBs Caleb Williams and Drake Maye because they’ve won too many games at 3-7. While Cowherd was speaking those words, a graphic appeared noting the Bears would pick first overall if the draft were held today via Carolina.

You can’t make it up.

What’s all the more strange about this is that Cowherd references the Bears owning two Top 10 picks. So obviously he knows about the Bears having an extra pick via trade… but is completely unaware of who, where, or what that pick is? Remember when Tony Reali corrected errors at the end of PTI back in the day? Maybe Cowherd should give that a try in real-time.

Update: Cowherd went on to discuss the Panthers’ pick situation a bit:

[@BackAftaThis]