Well, I’ve had a day to absorb the news; my first reaction was not good. When I found out the Bears dealt away Roquan Smith, I was pissed… I’m still not happy about it; trying to work through this in my brain. I know what my eyes saw; I know how many tackles this dude made. He was a sideline to sideline type guy; he brought speed to the position. He seemed to like it here; it felt like he wanted to be here. When the Bears drafted him, it was supposed to be the next great Bears LB; George, Butkus, Singletary, Urlacher, and… If Roquan does grow into a Hall of Fame linebacker, it won’t be in a Bears uniform, and that sucks. I thought Roquan would certainly be a piece of the next great Bears team; I guess I’m wrong, again.
What was it? As I process another trade of one of my favorite players, I’m trying to understand why. Is it the analytics that are ranking Roquan below what he thinks he should be paid? Is it the game here and there, like this past Sunday in Dallas, where he doesn’t make as much of an impact that is knocking him down a tier in the powers that be minds in Halas Hall? I think of our coach, a defensive guy, who has coached some great defensive players; I’m assuming he has a say in these decisions. I’m also assuming he co-signed this move, which begs the question: what was it about Roquan Smith that made him feel that this was the best thing to do? If there are those who know what a great defensive player looks like, Eberflus would certainly be in that group, no? If so, then he obviously doesn’t think Roquan is a $20M/year player. It will take years to find out if this was the right move…
As of today though, the Bears have gotten substantially worse. If the run D was bad with Roquan, imagine without. This is the part of these deals that makes it hard to understand. Now if you’re going to tell me that we’ll have a competent replacement for Roquan heading into next year, OK; this is what the Bears are positioning for anyways, right? Not only next year, but the next bunch of years, stockpiling draft picks, coming to the table with a ton of cap space. Based on Roquan’s age, I thought he would get some of that cash; I thought he would be here for the next bunch of years. I thought that, other than Fields, Roquan would be one of the next couple priorities on this current roster. There I go thinking again…
You see, another thought I have is that whatever decisions have been made over the past, what, 36 years, have not been good enough. With no Super Bowl victories to talk about since the greatest team of all time in 1985, I wonder… I wonder, if myself, like a lot of fans, could have done better; we certainly couldn’t have done worse. The fact that this is a NEW regime making these polarizing decisions allows me to fall back on the whole “wait and see” attitude; we have to give these guys a chance to build a winner, a Super Bowl champ… something that many before them have failed at. Is this Roquan Smith trade going to help make us a Super Bowl champion one day? Certainly Super Bowl champs are not determined by one move, and certainly a GM/coach can’t get every move right, but… this was a BIG move, not just your run of the mill trade. If/when you start missing on the big ones, kind of like Pace with the whole drafting of Trubisky, you start down a path you may not be able to recover from. What path did we just take a big step on?
Sure, I see all the folks defending this move; I understand the alternate endings with this type of deal. Excuse me if I’m not excited about this though… Recent Chicago sports history has me a lot skeptical… Jimmy Butler, trade him then he gets to the Finals, while we are hanging on left knee management. Baez, Bryant, Rizzo, Schwarber, Castellanos, Darvish, etc, etc, etc… Cubs move them, some of them are playing on the big stage again. DeBrincat, Dach, Hagel, Bread Man… dump them and… what now? This is only the past handful of years I’m talking about here. As for the Bears, dumping Quinn… fine. Khalil Mack I questioned, but understood a bit more than this one. Roquan… a 25 year old stud LB… just finishing up his rookie contract… one of the league leaders in tackles… whew… well, can’t do much about it now. Certainly nothing will stop me from cheering the Bears on, but my die-hard fandom allows me to question whatever the hell I want. Prove me wrong Poles, Eberflus… show us the path to that Super Bowl. Show me the next all-pro on defense that will help get us there. Love the concept of building/investing around Fields, but we do need a defense too; we just shipped a great one away. Thanks for torpedoing by over 6.5 win total bet this year btw… Back to leaning on one of the most important qualities of a die-hard fan…patience. Bear Down…
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