In case you haven't been paying attention to the Chicago sports media landscape, the Chicago Bears are at the forefront of some crazy things entering their Week 9 matchup with the New Orleans Saints. From the firing of their running backs coach over workplace misconduct, to ruffling the feathers of star cornerback Jaylon Johnson, the Bears have been in the headlines for the wrong reasons. Well, on Thursday, a former NFL GM has called out Ryan Poles' acquisition of Montez Sweat and labeled it a dumb decision.
On Thursday's edition of the Pat McAfee Show, former NFL GM Michael Lombardi completely ripped apart the trade Ryan Poles made for Montez Sweat. The clip is quite revealing and the viewer can hear the frustration in Lombardi's voice. He is very clearly against it.
The former GM continued on the point by pointing to the draft process. Every front office will pick guys to be starters. More often than not, early second-round picks are just as much starters as high first-round picks. In the case of the Sweat trade, the Bears moved on from an inexpensive, four-year starter with that pick for a player who they could simply pay a lot of money to in the offseason to get him in the building. Per Lombardi, 'that was the dumbest trade [Poles] could possibly make'.
Unfortunately for Poles, Lombardi is right. Giving up precious draft capital for a team who is very much still rebuilding doesn't make sense. The Bears aren't in a position to win anything, so adding Sweat isn't like adding that "final piece" to win a championship. Rather, they're just trying to become relevant and start working their way toward becoming a good team. Poles, with his insane amount of cap space, could've just won the betting war and not given up an important draft pick in a rebuild.
A lot of Bears' fans love the Sweat deal because of the player, which is completely understandable. However, when listening to Lombardi's thinking as a former front office executive, it's hard to argue his logic. As Lombardi said, he's not a Bears hater, he's a dumb hater and 'hates dumb decisions'. In the end, maybe the Sweat trade was a really dumb decision by Ryan Poles.
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