24 Hours of Pooch-Screwing, Courtesy of Your Chicago Bears and Chicago Bulls
The Windy City's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad sports day
Bears Down
Welcome to NFL Free Agency, circa 2024, a week in which — due to a contradictory combo platter of questionable actions and all-but total inaction — the Chicago Bears and their GM Ryan Poles screwed multiple pooches. To wit:
With a number of solid free agent running backs available, Poles inked D’Andre Swift — a 25-year-old who, according to a whole lot of advanced metrics, is a slightly above average player — to a three-year, $24 million deal.
In a draft where the Bears’ capital is limited, Poles shipped a fifth round pick to Buffalo for Ryan Bates — an offensive lineman who started just 19 of his 73 career regular season games.
You think that’s a big bowl of yuck? Well, here’s what Poles — whose team is in desperate need of a quality EDGE — didn’t do:
Sign beast EDGE Jonathan Greenard.
Sign beast EDGE Bryce Huff.
Sign beast EDGE Andrew Van Ginkel.
Not only did Poles not fill a need at EDGE (or center, or wide receiver, or defensive tackle), but he watched his team’s two closest divisional rivals, record-wise, improve themselves:
The Green Bay Packers snatched up RB Josh Jacobs, just one year removed from leading the NFL in rushing yards, and safety Xavier McKinney, one of only four defensive backs who finished last season with 115-plus tackles and 10-plus passes defensed.
The Minnesota Vikings landed aforementioned beasts Greenard and Van Ginkel.
Maybe there’s a method to Poles’ madness. Maybe not, But either way, the guy is getting too cute. And it’s not a good look.
As of this writing, there are a handful of potential signees who, unlike Swift, can move the Bears’ needle, those being DE Danielle Hunter, WR Calvin Ridley, and…that’s basically it, as only six of CBS Sports’ top-25 free agents remain on the street.
The inactivity is maddening and befuddling.
Why, with $62 million of cap space, did Poles sit on his hands on the all-important day one of free agency? Was he afraid of overpaying? If so, he wins that battle, because at this point, aside from Hunter, there’s nobody left to overpay.
More problematically, aside from Hunter, there’s nobody left who can get the Bears past the division favorite Detroit Lions. Hell, there’s nobody left who can get them past the Packers.
So unless Poles has an astounding trade up his sleeve, we can fairly label free agency a bust.
But Alan, you might be saying, don’t be so hasty. There’s still the draft.
Is there?
As detailed by noted NFL pundit Alan Goldsher, the Bears would be best served by drafting former USC signal caller Caleb Williams with their number one pick. Other noted NFL pundits have previously reported that Caleb-to-Chicago was all but a done deal, that Poles would be trading incumbent QB Justin Fields…somewhere. But yesterday, we found out that wasn’t necessarily the case.
For the sake of this discussion, let’s say that Poles is hitching his wagon to Fields. This means two things have to happen for Poles have his job beyond 2025:
Aside from his otherworldly running, Fields has to improve, well, everything.
Williams (or Drake Maye, or Jayden Daniels, or whichever quarterback Poles doesn’t draft) has to be a Trubisky-like bust.
If Poles does indeed move Chicago’s cherished number one pick, the return had better be mind-blowing, even more impressive than the haul he landed in last year’s number-one-pick deal.
To this point, nothing Poles has or hasn’t done in March gives the Bears a better shot at sniffing the postseason, let alone a Super Bowl ring. And I always thought an NFL GM’s goal was a Lombardi Trophy, not to be the cutest guy in the room.
Luka Laugher
Last week, the Chicago Bulls enjoyed one of their finest moments of the 2023-24 season, taking three out of four on one of their notoriously difficult West Coast swings.
Last night, the Chicago Bulls didn’t enjoy one of their finest moments of the 2023-24 season, a 127-92 drubbing at the hands of the Dallas Mavericks.
Forget the stats: All you need to know is that Luka Dončić did Luka Dončić things, and the game was all but over halfway through the first quarter.
Let’s make it about me.
Over the winter, one of my buddies — a native of Macedonia — was ready and willing to drop $500 on a ticket in order to see Dončić up-close-and-personal…and he wanted me to join him. Here’s how that chat went down:
Him: What’s your top price? What’re you willing to spend on a ticket?
Me: I dunno. Maybe $100?
Him: Okay, here’s what I’ll do. You pay your budget, and I’ll cover the rest.
Me: Hunh?
Him: Yeah, you give me $100, and I’ll put up the other $400 or whatever.
Me: Dude, I can’t accept that.
Him: We’ll see about that.
Fortunately in the interim, we both forgot about the conversation, because, y’know, $500. Even my buddy, a Dončić truther, would’ve been bored to tears with what amounted to a Harlem Globetrotters/Washington Generals-esque snooze-fest.
As the Bulls continue to stumble down the path to the Play-In Tournament, we have to expect this sort of Good-Rex-or-Bad-Rex mess.
And, taking into account what has and hasn’t happened over the past two weeks, it’ll be Good-Rex-Bad-Rex-redux for 2024 Chicago Bears.
Thus, Chicago's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad sports day.