On Halloween 2022, Ryan Poles traded future two-time All-Pro linebacker Roquan Smith to the Ravens.
A year later, on the same holiday, he traded for defensive end Montez Sweat from the Commanders.
The only solution Friday is for someone to replace his phone with a bag of fun-size Snickers bars.
Throw in the Chase Claypool debacle, and Poles’ deadline trades have been duds. He’s always been aggressive, though. If the Bears general manager insists upon it again this season, it needs to be on the margins and not a blockbuster. The Bears aren’t one standout player away from being a serious championship contender. Mercifully, they’re not sellers either.
With this year’s deadline looming at 3 p.m. Tuesday, Poles — and new head coach Ben Johnson, who wields considerable influence — has precious few days to figure out whether the Bears want to dip into their future assets to help this year’s team.
The Bears’ signing of the controversial C.J. Gardner-Johnson was proof the team needs capable bodies at cornerback. Injuries and ineptitude on the defensive line proves that they could use a situational edge rusher. Those are two of the league’s most valuable commodities, though, and not something acquired on the cheap. In fact, the best thing that can be said about the Gardner-Johnson move was that it cost only money and not a future draft pick.
The Bears should resist the urge to give up significant picks — anything above, say, the fifth round — for fixes now. That’s not to say Poles and Johnson should sit on their hands — the Bears could leave Cincinnati on Sunday night with a 5-3 record, which would match last year’s win total. A Bears team hasn’t been better than 5-3 through their first eight games since Lovie Smith started 7-1 in 2012. Poles and Johnson would owe it to the franchise to add improvements where they can and try to win their first playoff game since the end of the 2010 season.
They seem unlikely to subtract anyone significant. Backup left tackle Braxton Jones, who is on the last year of his contract, was the most likely candidate to be traded until the Bears put him on injured reserve with a knee injury Saturday.
Receiver DJ Moore could be considered redundant if you squint hard enough, but second-round pick Luther Burden is in concussion protocol. Moore hasn’t put up numbers commensurate with the four-year, $110 million deal the Bears gave him a year ago — he has 26 catches on just 38 targets this season, one year after his 9.9 yards per catch average marked a career low. His $28.5 million cap hit in both 2026 and 2027 — which ranks in the top 12 of receivers the next two years — makes him even less attractive.
The Bears’ goal this season, though, is to develop Caleb Williams into their franchise quarterback and win games, in that order. Moving Moore — who the Bears have praised as the anti-diva, particularly at a high-maintenance position — wouldn’t help either cause.
The Bears have needs at left tackle and running back, where depth has been a concern for months. The best addition they can make in the second half of the season is for Williams to make the kind of leap that Packers quarterback Jordan Love did two years ago. Love ranked 30th in passer rating in the first eight games of 2023 — and sixth the rest of the way.
That sort of improvement would make the Bears contenders for a playoff spot this season and something more lofty next year. That’s when Poles and Johnson could make their move.
The rest of the NFL will be watching the Bears’ game Sunday — but mostly to see what happens to the team on the opposite sideline. If the Bengals fall to 3-6, they could consider moving on from defensive end Trey Hendrickson, who’s in the final year of his contract and figures to sign elsewhere in free agency. Hendrickson’s hip injury has kept him out of practice all week, though, and any acquiring team would need some assurance of his health.
The Cowboys have been linked to Hendrickson, but owner Jerry Jones said this week that “there hasn’t been anything close to a deal” with him or the Raiders’ Maxx Crosby, by far the two most intriguing edge rushers on the market. The Bears would need to do some financial gymnastics to even afford to pay Crosby, who has a $35.8 million cap hit next year, anyway. The same goes for other expensive veterans.
Only six teams are projected to have less salary cap space in 2026 than the Bears. That’s in part because of the Sweat trade. Poles traded a second-round pick — who became Eagles cornerback Cooper DeJean — to the Commanders for Sweat and gave him a four-year, $98 million extension days later. He has the fourth-highest cap hit of any edge rusher in the league this year.
A second-half breakout from Sweat — or Moore — is just as needed as one from Williams. The fastest way for the Bears to get better isn’t for them to add someone from the outside, then, but for them to get a boost from the inside.
