Bears in Position Now Not to Make Trades

It's that time of year again.

Teams in need go shopping. Teams trying to build try to sell off pieces they might lose next year, anyway.

No one should be surprised by a report from ESPN about GM Ryan Poles looking into the value of Eddie Jackson and Jaylon Johnson should they decide they might be interested in trading either—or even someone else at this point.

Another report later by The Athletic said they are not trying to trade Johnson. Just because you're trying to ascertain value doesn't mean you're trying to trade someone. It just means you were doing your due diligence.

The Bears really owe it to themselves to be looking into such things because you never know what stupid thing a desperate NFL GM might be willing to do.

Why, last year one NFL GM was even willing to give away the 32nd pick in the draft, essentially a first-rounder, to acquire Chase Claypool.

So some teams will make mistakes and it's always best to find out who's out there fishing and for what.

As usual, it would seem the Bears already stumbled all over themselves trying to handle this delicate situation.

Or have they?

If they wanted to get out word they would be willing to deal either of these players quickly and without actually saying they were willing, then they just did it.

Regardless, neither Jackson nor Johnson should be headed anywhere until season's end.

No one is going to come looking for Jackson now because he's being paid a $13 million salary, $14 million next year, and is going to be 30 years old next year.

If they really needed a veteran safety next year, a team might even find him being waived before free agency because of costs. It's not a certainty but a possiblity at this point.

Sure, Jackson's salary is easily converted to guaranteed bonus money in a restructuring for a trade now, but that's a big chunk of cash for the future with a 30-year-old safety who has had a season-ending foot injury and then another foot injury this year.

So scratch the thought of anyone trading for Jackson and the Bears should count themselves fortunate to have him for at least the rest of this year, if he is healthy, because the alternatives on their roster are essentially seventh-rounders, unproven players who have been cut by other teams or a combination thereof.

As for Johnson, they might find more interest but should not trade him in the end and here's why.

1. Return Value

Sure, if someone like, say, Dallas, wanted Johnson and felt desperate enough to cough up face value of a second-round pick for the 2020 second-rounder, the Bears should listen.

This seems very unlikely.

Fans always seem to overestimate a player's value.

Johnson hasn't produced enough in the NFL to bring back a second-round pick in exchange. He's indicated he can excel but circumstances have caused lack of consistent production.

He has one interception, which has happened, in part, because he is asked often to take on the role of blanketing a top receiver rather than playing his position in a zone. This means disruption is the optimum goal rather than a takeaway.

This said, Johnson does have three forced fumbles in three seasons and that's well ahead of the curve for this group of defensive players.

What's also true is the number of pass defenses by Johnson declined each year and some of this is proof he was doing his job. They target someone else. The number of targets he has faced dropped each year, in part, too, because teams knew they could pick on other players more successfully in the Bears secondary.

Johnson also has dropped his passer rating against when targeted each year. Right now, it's at a scant 57.4, although it's a small sample size after only 11 passes thrown his way in three games before the hamstring injury he is just now past.

The problem with Johnson is part of the reason his targets and chances to knock down passes are so low is injury.

He missed three games his rookie year, and also a playoff game. He missed two games in 2021, six in 2022 and is at two missed and a chunk of the third game in this season. In all, he has missed 14 out of 56 games without an injury somone could deem serious—that is one requiring career-threatening surgery.

These are all going to be weighed by a team in desperate need of a veteran cornerback presence.

Let's remember they got only a second-round pick for first-rounder Roquan Smith, who suddenly is even Pro Football Focus' darling after he couldn't get a decent grade from them throughout his four-plus seasons and four defensive coordinators in Chicago.

What are they going to get at midseason, then, for a second-round cornerback who has been injured a lot?

2. Lack of Adequate Replacement

The Bears raved about Tyrique Stevenson and love what they saw of Terell Smith so far. So cornerback appears a deep spot.

Not really.

As Jerry Angelo used to say—and just about any personnel person in the league always has—you can never have enough cornerbacks.

What the Bears have seen of those young cornerbacks is merely potential. They know Johnson already can play well, and with an overdue stretch of good health he'd be even more valuable. The odds favor him staying healthy after a stretch with poor health.

Honestly, they've barely begun to get a glimpse of either of these rookie cornerbacks they drafted.

Smith has played 163 defensive snaps and been targeted 19 times. His outstanding 52.6% completions allowed and 86.3 passer rating given up when targeted could simply be a matter of mathematics. He needs to play more games before probability can be ascertained. And he's injured and sick right now, anyway.

Also, with Stevenson, the returns haven't been nearly as positive. He has played more, 267 snaps to be exact. And teams targeted him 29 times for a 72.4% completion percentage against according to Sportradar. He has given up three TDs and a 139.9 passer rating against when targeted. That's not good.

While he shows traits a good cornerback would have, the production hasn't been there yet.

So they're going to throw away something they know they have in Johnson, knowing they have one fifth-round rookie playing well in a brief appearance and one second-rounder in the inconsistent-to-poor range?

It makes no sense but if you want to be in rebuild forever then knock yourself out.

3. Why Draft Another Cornerback?

If they do trade Johnson, it will put them in the market for another cornerback in the 2024 draft.

How many times do they have to keep drafting people on Day 1 or 2 for their secondary when the obvious needs they have are on the line of scrimmage?

They need pass rushers inside and outside. They need a younger starting center.

Then there is the drastic need for a wide receiver after the Chase Claypool deal proved an unmitigated embarrassment for Poles.

What could they have done with that second-round pick?

It makes no sense to draft another cornerback when they have a perfectly good one on hand.

Pay the man.

4. Give Winning a Chance

Let's not forget the idea of all this rebuilding is to win games.

Constantly looking to move players off the roster, particularly proven veterans, is not conducive to winning. It's conducive to constantly moving players off the roster and more disruption.

They might have beaten Washington and played well against Denver with subs in their secondary, but so far results this season suggest those were opponents who are going to draft down around where the Bears will pick with the pick they got from Carolina. They were bad teams.

There has been far too little winning going on in 22 games during the Matt Eberflus regime. Even bad teams should win more than four times in 22 efforts.

Part of the reason they haven't won has been a poor defense and an unstable one. It's a lineup constantly fluctuating.

Remove Roquan Smith and Robert Quinn last year and what happened? Losing. They lost 14 straight. They've had the secondary constantly changing this season after an off-season when they either hadn't fully assembled the defense or they were injured.

They need lineup stability at this point on defense after they didn't get their defensive starters available and together on the field at all until preseason ended.

At some point you need to get all the guys out there playing actual football and see what you've really got. It's time.

Bears fans have put up with far too much automatic losing during the "rebuild," and it's time to be a little more competitive with a better quality of defense.

The Bears should not have a worse record with players they brought in, who they said were talented, than they had with players who were considered a throw-away lineup last year when they were gutting the roster for salary cap reasons.

So getting a more clear picture of what they've got in hand is necessary and you don't get that by discarding more pieces. You let it play out, and if Johnson leaves in free agency then so be it. But the Bears have plenty of cash available to make sure this doesn't happen if they so choose. They have the second-most cap space available for 2024. Considering Jackson's salary, the position he plays and that next year is the last year of his contract, it's likely they'll have even more cap space than the $86 million Overthecap.com says they'll have to spend. So retaining Johnson shouldn't be a problem.

5. History

Poles has shown he's capable of doing far more damage to his own team with in-season trades than he has done good with the ones he made during off-seasons.

Considering he made the trade for DJ Moore in the off-season that's saying quite a bit about Poles' inability to make an in-season trade.

The Roquan Smith trade and the Chase Claypool trade were utter disasters.

They gave away the draft's 32nd pick for a budding men's fashion model.

Smith left for Baltimore and since then their defense has given up 31.4 points on average in 14 games.

Time to put the trading toys away and get serious about winning football games, then pick it all back up after the season.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven

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