WrigleyField 22

Assets left behind for Poles Mack - traded for a 2nd and 6th Quinn - traded for a day 3 pick Smith - traded away for a 2nd and 5th None of those bad individually, and Quinn was obviously spent, but not Mack and Smith, so you have to have plan to replace talent. Daniels - didn't even try to sign Jenkins - obviously has had injury issues, but even when healthy this regime seems intent to treat him as afterthought even though he is their best lineman until Wright maybe takes that claim Johnson - looks dangerously close to losing next offseason Collectively can call Nichols, Dalton, and Allen Robinson an asset in the form of a possible comp pick, which I'm usually not in favor of pining over, but nonetheless gave up so they could sign a horrid FA class in their place. Turned around and has traded a high second and likely another high second for Claypool and Sweat. When you do the pick arbitrage, all of those collective moves are basically Mack, Quinn, Smith, Daniels, et al for Sweat, and a handful of late picks. Then you have the pick 1 haul obviously. Which Moore is still the main asset to hang hat on. And yea, the two additional picks havent had opportunity to hit, but at this point, that trade and related Wright pick are the only truely good thing he's done. A tank haul isn't enough for a GM to hang hat on nearly 2 years in. Nearly everything else has been a combination of inaction and bad/meh when he has acted.

Holy strawman.. Building a super bowl team? How about competent team and coaching staff? Poles was left with more than it feels like you're giving credit for. The only possibly justification for the Bears right now is that Poles hasn't really tried yet which is pretty damming. And if the Jaylon negotiations are any indication it's that tanking away a season has bigger consequences than the mere 14 losses. Bears look like a mess right now and honestly most of that is what Poles has built (and not built)

He's afraid of the salary cap. Can't be helped. Hope the next GM understands the cap.

Poles, trying to find out where players like Mack are from the current roster (I generally thought the Mack move was fine in isolation, but hard tanking after, nah)

Yea for better or worse they really would need the franchise tag for Jaylon Johnson (even just for negotiations). They can't hold it over both. Needs to lock up at least one.

Hey he got a RG who's hardly played too

Bears extend recently acquired defensive lineman!

Tepidly invested /heavily invested. Tamatoe / tamahtoe

He also attended my High School (didn't graduate as he ended up at IMG his senior year). So I'd have some big rooting interests too.

Get ready for the JJ McCarthy hype baby. Local kid!

Sheesh, forget any hedging I did the past 24 hours lol

Flush the Flus

As a recent benchmark: Chubb was traded From Denver to Miami last year on Nov 1 and the extension was reported Nov 3. So I would think within next day there's a good shot of a deal announced. If not within a week, definitely legit to start getting concerned.

Lol what? Is it another Alan Willians situation? Edit - HR was involved in decision. Yeesh. What's the pre employment screening process like for Poles/Flus?

At the same time they have a decent chunk of money in their front 4 with Payne and Allen and clearly need help elsewhere and have a couple extra picks to help with that. Is Payne living up to his extension? Because that was probably the choice.

I'd guess rough figures were exchanged enough to get comfortable.

I can't discount Poles being the only GM in on it and still getting swindled unfortunately. Hopefully there were some other bidders involved in that price. Common sense and logic along with reports pointed to Washington clearing their DL glut rather than lose one for nothing. I do think other teams were in on it and would have swooped him up, if a Bears weren't highest bidder.

I think it's pretty obvious that he wasn't gonna hit FA. He was being shopped and was gonna get locked up to an extension, almost certainly.

Yuck, if so.

Well you are inserting a different question altogether then about whether you're allowed to buy in a lost year or not, But its usually a pretty slippery slope to the "we're not x player away" arguments. You do have to add good players. The remaining games still do have value. All the said, I think Sweat's value to a high second IS highly suspect. I just don't think the broad sentiment against trading picks to get very good players. To compound that and say, "well Moore was a good example and this isn't" ehhh. They're probably a lot closer than you're giving credit to.

The trade was made when we knew he wouldn't play ball for 6 more months so I'm not sure exactly how relevant pedanting over "age at time of trade" vs "age now" really matters. Age at first snap for team: 26.42 v 27.19

So a year?

Wait, I messed it up, 6 months in age difference, not 18 lol Decision tree for each: 2025 1st Round Pick (CAR) 2024 2nd Round Pick (CHI) or or 26.5 year WR 27.0 year DE 4 Y / $52M 4 Y / $96M

He had a big(ish) contract. That's still paying a guy twice yea?

18 months in age, and you're still doing the "paying them twice" on an existing deal as much as you are on a hypothetical new deal. Obviously not exactly the same, but obviously these decisions exist on a spectrum, and they're two shades of same color and not black/white here like you're treating it.