Nobody is safe.
That has to be the message permeating the Bears’ locker room after new general manager Ryan Poles traded linebacker Roquan Smith to the Ravens on Monday –one day before Tuesday’s 3 p.m. trade deadline –for a 2023 second-round pick, 2023 fifth-round pick and veteran linebacker A.J. Klein.
Smith was in the final year of his contract, but the Bears could have kept him on the franchise tag the next two years for about $38 million total. He was 25 and entering his prime — the exact kind of player a team should want to build around.
Instead, Poles has made his most surprising — and polarizing — move as GM.
When Poles traded Khalil Mack, he was 31 and coming off a season in which he played seven games. When he moved Robert Quinn last week, he was trading a 32-year-old defensive end who had managed one sack all season.
This is different.
This is his Mitch Trubisky moment.
When predecessor Ryan Pace traded up to draft the North Carolina quarterback in 2017, he knew that he’d be forever linked to his decision. Poles will be too, particularly if Smith — who started the season as a “hold-in” and publicly accused Poles of negotiating in bad faith — continues his run as one of the league’s best inside linebackers while playing for one of the NFL’s most well-run franchises. The trade could destabilize a Bears team that already struggled emotionally with the loss of Quinn, a more obvious trade candidate, last week.
What players on the Bears are untouchable now? Justin Fields, probably. But the Smith trade might even color the way Poles looks at his quarterback at the end of the season. If the 17 weeks of this season are meant to show Poles whether Fields can — or can’t –be the Bears’ franchise quarterback, the GM just stated loudly that he’s not blindly wed to any of the players he inherited from Ryan Pace.
Not that there are many left–take away Smith, and only 10 of the Bears’ 22 starters in Sunday’s loss to the Cowboys were on the roster when Poles was hired in January. Only two defensive starters remain from 2020: cornerback Jaylon Johnson and safety Eddie Jackson.
The Bears are expected to have $116 million in salary cap space next season, plus at least three extra draft picks acquired from the trades of the past week. If Poles allocates those resources to the kind of players a modern offense needs — multiple receivers and at least one tackle –Fields will be better for it. That is, if the Bears decide that he’s worth building around. Handing the quarterback a midseason bombshell gives him one other thing to try to overcome.
Monday’s deal was surely noted by the resurgent Jackson, who inherited Quinn’s defensive captaincy Sunday amid a resurgent season, and running back David Montgomery. If Poles can trade Smith, he can certainly trade them– and there should be a market for both.
As much as the Bears praise Montgomery, he’s increasingly been on the wrong side of a timeshare with second year running back Khalil Herbert. Herbert averaged 6.2 yards per carry Sunday, and Montgomery 3.5. Letting Montgomery leave via free agency in March would, in ordinary years, help yield a compensatory draft pick. The Bears, though, figure to spend so much on new players as to make that a moot point.
The Bears don’t have an intriguing backup for Jackson — but they didn’t have one for Smith, either. Undrafted free agent Jack Sanborn might get the first crack at the starting job.
When he dealt Robert Quinn to the Eagles on Wednesday, Poles said that he was confident that certain defenders would “continue to hold it down and be leaders.” He listed four players: defensive lineman Justin Jones, Johnson, Jackson and Smith.
One of them has been traded since. Another could be.
