Sometimes one movement is enough to see the forest for the trees.
When the Bears traded for Khalil Mak in 2018, it was not a very subtle nod to higher ambitions. You’ll only get a player like Mac in his prime if you’re thinking about the Super Bowl and you’re thinking about winning him pretty soon.
Likewise, what the Bears and GM Ryan Poles did on Thursday signifies a different direction. You only trade a 31-year-old player who’s already out of his prime like Mac if you’re thinking about winning the Super Bowl, but not right away. You only trade a player like Mac if you think your team is far away and in need of a major rebuild. The end of the Mac era in Chicago heralds the building plans of the Poles.
I want to clarify that this is not an analysis of trading and returns and how that affects the bears. We have many other places for that here at Windy City Gridiron. In due time there will be enough time to try to sort out the smallest details.
No no. I want to focus on the approach of the 36-year-old first-time chief HR manager and what he said to the huge Chicago (and his team) when he traded a player like Mac. A player like a Mac with a little tread on the tires: Rebuild, however soft it is (again, I don’t care about semantics right now), is coming. Harden your nerves.
Rebuilding now means centering your franchise direction around the quarterback. As it should be, to be honest. In this case, it’s Justin Fields. Rebuilding now means clearing the financial books prolonged temporary pain, moving away from any players you deem unworthy of their compensation in order to get as many new pieces as possible in return. In this case, it’s Mac, but it could soon include Danny Trevathan, Tariq Cohen, Jimmy Graham, and possibly even Robert Quinn (in exchange) among others.
Reconstruction now means moving forward, trying to start over with a clean slate as quickly as possible, regardless of any hard feelings right after. It takes a lot of courage to trade someone like Mac, regardless of his advanced age or profit. You will be condemned for this in the media and the always good Internet, and you don’t have a replacement for a player of this caliber, at least not right away.
Unlike any official presentation at press conferences, this is also the unofficial start of Ryan Poles’ tenure as Bears general manager. You know how they say a playoff series isn’t a series until someone wins on the road? The same applies to grandmasters until they exchange (or release) the previous fixtures of the last persons in charge. The Poles finally received their first naval and orange insignia.
I don’t know what the Poles are planning to do to make Justin Fields the first all-star Bears quarterback most of us have ever seen in our lives. And I don’t know if it will work. But Thursday told me that he would be patient, that he would not squeeze every last drop of a team era that ultimately failed. Thursday said he was ready to turn the Bears into his vision, and it’s better to rip off the band-aid now than delay the inevitable.
The hard part is turning that vision into something meaningful, something countless Bears grandmasters have failed at. But then again: the Poles would not have taken this job if it was easy, right? If he’s brave enough to get away from Mac, no one is safe. You only need to remember the omen. An offseason of upheavals is bound to follow.