NEWSLETTER
When it comes to the draft-day scenarios, there are more balls in the air for the Chicago Bears than usual. Although any outcome is always technically possible, almost every outcome seems more plausible than normal this time around.
For example, Chicago could trade up for a top QB (addressing a need as old as time itself). They could trade back, considering that they could use as much draft capital as possible. And they could play it safe by standing pat, taking the best player available, and moving along their merry way. It’s all possible. But today, I want to address the first one: moving up.
All things considered, trading up is equal parts fun, dangerous, and often the most alluring possibility. But it also comes with a hangup that could stop the ball from rolling before it even starts moving:
Will the @ChicagoBears mortgage their future in order to make a big move up in the #NFLDraft ? #NFL #GMFB @KyleBrandt pic.twitter.com/7UsLyHBrQJ
— Scott Pioli (@scottpioli51) April 27, 2021
Let’s zero in on the key part:
“Because they’re a couple of years in, ownership is going to have to sign off on every big trade. So when you look at the Bears situation, if they’re going to have some sort of significant trade and give away a lot of currency for the future, the ownership is going to have a say in that. At this point in time, I don’t think that ownership would support their front office and their head coach mortgaging the future in order to do that because they’re in a place where they have to do some winning now.”
Former league executive Scott Pioli hints at Bears ownership possibly handcuffing GM Ryan Pace and Head Coach Matt Nagy when it comes to moving up in the Draft for a top quarterback prospect (it is at this point that I’d like to share Kyle Brandt’s sentiments with my own audible groan: Ugggggggggggggh).
But what makes this more than mildly annoying is that Pioli isn’t alone in this belief.
Check out Albert Breer in a recent installment of The MMQB:
“One question being batted around in NFL circles is whether ownership would sign off on a massive move up the board, which would take moving future assets to pull off. There were questions about the job security of Nagy and Pace in the middle of last season, and the team has been coy about the contract status of the GM and coach. And sometimes, in situations like that, owners will be careful about letting guys sell out in the draft.”
Seeing both Pioli and Breer echo the same sentiment is unnerving. But it brings me to this thought.
If Chairman George McCaskey and President Ted Phillips feel a need to put restraints on their GM and coach because they didn’t trust them enough to trade up and select a future franchise quarterback in this draft, then they shouldn’t have been brought back for the 2021 season in the first place (Michael: THANK YOU.)
An opportunity for a clean break presented itself at the end of 2020. There was a path to move on from a GM entering a lame-duck year. It would’ve taken some hard swallowing to get through axing a coach with two years left on his deal. But the path for a full house-cleaning was there. To not take it and to try to thread the needle in a way that precludes your team from possibly bringing on a franchise QB is an easy way to spiral as an organization.
(Michael: And, to add on there, in a normal organization, you might even find it easy to shrug off these two reports as nonsensical, precisely BECAUSE it doesn’t make sense to hang onto your GM/Head Coach when a clear opportunity to split was available only to hamstring both just a few months later. But this isn’t a normal organization, it’s the Bears. This is how things go some times. Of course, even that isn’t an entirely fair conclusion, because Bears ownership might be *right* to prevent Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy from, say, trading three first-round picks to draft another QB (when you might not even get one of the top-3 guys anyway). But even in that best-case scenario, you can say only that they stumbled into the right decision for all the wrong reasons.)
For what it’s worth, ownership always has to sign off on big deals. After all, the folks at the top are the ones signing the paychecks. That’s how the business of pro sports in America works. Team ownership ultimately has the OK for major decisions. And it’s not as if ownership hasn’t given the green-light to landscape-shifting moves in the past. Trading for Khalil Mack and giving him the largest contract ever handed to a defensive player required ownership approval. As did jettisoning Phil Emery and Marc Trestman. It’s all just frustrating and confusing. Thankfully, we won’t have to wait much longer to see it play out.
In the end, we’re entering the pre-draft period where any number of endings is a possible one. However, one that features ownership interference is the least optimal of them all.
