Chicago Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson said last week he believed the locker room was “mature” enough to rally together if general manager Ryan Poles chose to trade Justin Fields this offseason.
The Bears reportedly were thought to be too immature to handle Fields staying if they chose to draft a quarterback with the No. 1 pick.
Let’s unpack a few major bulletin points about the Steelers/Bears trade.
The Chicago Bears locker room had Ryan Poles pull the trigger early
Multiple reports surfaced Monday morning indicating Poles pulled the trigger to trade Fields to the Pittsburgh Steelers for a worse return than he could get after the draft or closer to the start of the regular season because of the toll it would take on players in the Bears locker room.
Per Dan Graziano with ESPN, Poles didn’t carry around a good poker face early this offseason about the Bears’ plan to trade Fields and draft a quarterback in April. Graziano hints that the Bears wanted to keep away from awkwardness in the Bears locker room:
“When the offseason began, it wasn’t too wild to think that some team might view Fields as its 2024 starting quarterback. Had that been the case, a second-rounder was feasible. But it has become clear that no team does right now, and the Bears reached the point where they had to decide between holding Fields through the offseason and hoping the market improved or taking what they could get and avoiding the potential mess of having him and a No. 1 pick rookie (likely USC’s Caleb Williams) on the roster together.
The Bears lost a lot of leverage because of the minimal market and the leaguewide belief they were planning to replace Fields. GM Ryan Poles talked about doing “right by Justin” at the combine, and Chicago appears to have made a move that meets that goal. Waiting might have turned out to be the better move for the roster long-term, but cutting ties now at least allows the Bears to move on into the future without any offseason awkwardness.”
ESPN‘s Courtney Cronin backs up Graziano’s sentiment. She notes that Poles was looking for a Day 2 pick plus a conditional late 2025 pick for Fields but settled for the latter in part because of characters in the locker room:
Adding a No. 1 pick like USC quarterback Caleb Williams to the mix, even just for offseason workouts and training camp, might have made the situation untenable, or at least awkward for both players. With several Bears players recently voicing strong support for Fields, the potential for locker room discord had to be considered…
“You just can’t [have both on the roster],” an NFL assistant coach told ESPN prior to the trade. “The league called Chicago’s bluff, and won.
“They’re not getting anything for [Fields], and just need to let him go.”
Several Bears players, including safety Jaquan Brisker, appeared upset about the Fields’ trade to the Steelers when they published their posts on social media Saturday night. Poles knew he couldn’t wait for Fields’ value to rise in May or August because of outbursts like what you saw on public forums Saturday night. The situation would have been worse behind closed doors.
Ryan Poles waited too long to pull the trigger
Graziano and Cronin both state the Bears could have traded for better draft compensation before Saturday night. Per Graziano, the Bears kept their asking price for Fields too high early in the process:
“There was a market for quarterbacks whose teams no longer saw them as starters, but the Bears didn’t drop their demands early enough to maximize their return.”
Cronin states that six teams gave the Bears a trade offer for Fields. Again, while she states that most of those teams saw Fields as a backup, not all of them did. So, the Bears did have an opportunity to trade Fields to a team where he could have been a starting quarterback for the 2024 season.
Some good news for Justin Fields and the Bears’ conditional pick
The Bears need Fields to play in 51 percent of the Steelers’ offensive snaps for the 2024 regular season in order for the 2025 sixth-round pick to turn into a 2025 fourth-round pick. Per Jeff Howe with The Athletic, the New York Giants met with Russell Wilson last week but did not offer him a starting job.
Wilson isn’t seen as a lock to be a starting quarterback in the league. In fact, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin wasn’t sold on Wilson being a starter before last Monday. Per Albert Breer with Sports Illustrated, the Steelers planned to have Pickett compete with Wilson for the starting job. However, Wilson was to get the first-team reps this spring:
“On Saturday night before the legal tampering period kicked off, Tomlin told Pickett that he wasn’t sure if the team would land Wilson, but if it happened, there’d be an open competition for the job. Pickett said he was fine with that. Wilson agreed to terms Sunday. On Monday, Tomlin told Pickett that Wilson would work from pole position to start, and get the first reps at the beginning of OTAs, with Pickett competing from there.
Wilson hadn’t been given any assurance to be the starter (or really much of anything else). But you can see how Pickett’s first two years as a pro affected how he saw what Tomlin was telling him. His guard was up. He felt misled, based on conversations less than 48 hours apart from each other. Which is why he ended up asking for a trade. You can assign blame on that to whoever you want.”
This means a couple of things for the Fields and Bears. On the truth about Fields’ value in the league, the league appears to value Pickett over Fields. Tomlin has named Wilson the starter for the 2024 season, and the Steelers have put out word that they are interested in extending Wilson next offseason.
However, the report also means Wilson isn’t a lock to be the starter for the entirety of the 2024 season. Essentially, the Steelers added two backups to their roster last week. Wilson could easily fall out of favor with Tomlin if he struggles in September or October and Fields balls out in the preseason.
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