Contrarian point of view:

Fire sales right before the trade deadline are stupid because everyone knows you’re a forced seller so you won’t get good trade value.

For both Chase and Sweat specifically, they’re also both on the last year of their current contracts so no team wants to give up a lot since they might not re-sign.

This means it unlikely they will ever be worth less than right now. Never a good idea to buy high and sell low.

Not only that, JDR’s scheme is shit. It’s hard to imagine either guy will play worse in the future than they are right now.

Despite that, at the level they’re currently playing, the league consensus is that both players would still be highly paid in free agency.

So why not sign Sweat and franchise tag Young?

Who else are we going to spend money on right now? All our other players worth keeping are still on rookie deals. We’re not “one piece away” from a championship where it makes sense to go get some big free agent. Another over the hill veteran QB would be a disaster. So we might as well keep building through the draft.

Yeah, all this money tied up in the d-line is not ideal in theory but is it really tied up? If next year Chase and Sweat ball out with competent coaches, they will be worth more. If they perform the same, then we haven’t lost anything. If in a year or two we want to pay other positions, we can trade Sweat at that time. He would be worth more since he would have more left on his contract. He’s unlikely to be worth less then.

Only major risk I see is that we resign Sweat and he sucks or gets injured next year. But He’s been a consistent performer, even with bad coaching and his health record is good so I think its an acceptable risk.

Ultimately it’s better to extend and control the asset than be a forced seller.

What am I missing here?

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