There’s a part of the job description of NFL general manager that doesn’t get talked about that often. It has become a dirty secret — like knowing how the sausage is made. When you hire a GM for your football team, he has to be a great poker player. To say it more bluntly, your GM has to be an excellent liar.
It doesn’t really feel good hitching your wagon to the lying ability of Ryan Poles, but that’s exactly what you should be rooting for, for the rest of the offseason. I’m sure that Poles would bristle at the description “liar.” Anyone would. It’s not a nice thing to say nor is it really a thing that most people covet being, but we’ve entered the part of the offseason, where it’s imperative that Poles and his staff disseminate false information all over the league.
It’s why you’re going to continue to see somewhat laughable stories about Justin Fields and how the Bears feel about Fields. Some of those stories are going to be planted by the Bears with the very deniable “NFL Sources…” giving plausible deniability. I’ve been struggling with the idea of morality in spaces like this since I was covering the league every day. I’d have 20-minute conversations with agents, coaches or front-office people, mostly “on background,” that always left me more confused than when I picked up the phone.
My process always had to do with wondering what the benefit was for me knowing information and what it would do to the marketplace if I just blindly reported things I was told. I’m no dummy, or overly self-important. I understand that for the most part the needle is being moved on rumors by big time news-breakers like Adam Schefter or Ian Rapoport and the information apparatus that is ESPN’s talking-head shows. From a journalistic standpoint I am fearful that we have stepped into a space where one-source reporting has become the norm and not the outlier. That’s a column for another day.
At one point last week I looked up while doing my radio show to see that ESPN & ESPN2 were simultaneously having debates about whether or not Fields should be traded. It was two completely different panels who were discussing the subject and it made me laugh.
So you know where I stand on the issue: I believe that trading Fields is a fool’s errand. Let me give you some reasons why:
1. In even allowing Fields’ name to surface, you’ve damaged your return.
2. While most analysts have been stuck on the idea that drafting another quarterback restarts the QB clock, realistically the Bears have Fields under contract control for at least the next three years. They can pick up his fifth year option at the end of next season. If we throw in a Franchise Tag at the end of year 5, that’s four years of control.
3. Trading Fields lessens the value of the Bears #1 Draft pick. Or at least has them playing. roulette with trading down and getting the QB that they want. Ideally, the haul of picks that the Bears would get for that pick would be more valuable than the gap between Fields and whomever the Bears have as their number QB on the draft board. They have holes everywhere. You need to maximize picks to fix that.
4. If Poles can’t envision the Bears being competitive by the 2024 season, then he probably wasn’t the right person to hire in the first place.
As Lemmy from Motorhead would say: “It’s time to play the game!” Bears fans should be rooting for Poles to be a dirty, rotten scoundrel til we get to the draft. Hope that he has teams who are looking to move up to the #1 pick spinning around like tops.
There is a downside though. Being shrewd will get you love if your plan succeeds. But if the Bears are actually thinking about trading Fields, I hope they’re ready for the backlash that will come along with it. The fanbase just found something to believe in. A move like that would erode faith in the vision.
It’s the lying season. Justin, trust NOBODY!
