How come the announcers on Thursday Night Football are calling Roquan Smith the best linebacker in the league, but no one would call him that when he was on the Bears?
I know he’s better and has always been better than Warner, Williams, or anybody else, but on the Bears he’s only top 5 even though his stats were even better on the Bears.
At least the analysts should say they were wrong about Fred Warner being better or something! C’mon. He’s even regressed a little since joining the Ravens.
And how did we get fleeced? Roquan wanted more money than we gave both the linebackers we had and wanted out anyway because we suck. I say a mid level second is a win. Not all teams get to unload Chase Claypool level players for the #32 pick. Ok.
And the fact is the trade isn’t all that applies to the Bears. We gave up Roquan Smith. We got a second, a fifth, and a rental on Kline. But then because we didn’t pay Roquan we got Edmunds and Edwards.
It’s not a zero sum game in a trade. We traded the best linebacker in the league to fill out 4 holes on the worst defense in the league. Ultimately setting us up to also trade for and sign Sweat.
We traded Smith so we could have our current MLB1,WLB1, RDE1, SLB2, and RDT2 all on the roster performing well.
And this whole post is definitely copium because I loved Smith, but the Chiefs loved Hill, and they traded him to be able to field their now top 5 defense. And they have the 1 seed nearly locked up! We obviously don’t have Mahomes, but we have a chance to be a good team in the future with where we are both on the roster and in terms of draft capital in large part because of the Smith trade.
Of course if the coaching and Claypool trade are any indication, we’re gonna screw it up, but at least we have a chance. Especially if the Panthers continue to suck.
Totally agree, NOBODY thought he was a top linebacker when he was on the Bears. If they did he would have been deemed All Pro which he never was.
To just look at the trade at face value is a gross oversimplification. The trade was the last step in a broken relationship to try to get something for him. The reality it seems is, rightly or wrongly, Poles wasn’t sure he wanted to keep Roquan and Roquan got offended, and the relationship ruptured. At that point, we had to salvage anything we can to get something for him rather than just lose him in free agency. Hence the trade. I thought it was totally misrepresented as well.
I also would say, I liked Roquan a lot. Having seen Urlacher and Singletary play before him, I wouldn’t say Roquan was that level of a middle linebacker. He was good, but he would absolutely disappear in games and he did have trouble shedding blocks. I"m not at all saying he isn’t great but I would also not say he is the best middle linebacker in the league. Seems the pendulum swung the other way on him.