You don't have to like the Jeffery Simmons trade
But you're a dumbass if you don't.
The Bears are in Seattke tonight for what could be an NFC Championship Game preview, and would be an NFC Championship rematch if DJ Moore had read the Rams coverage the same way Caleb Williams did in overtime of the Rams' game last year.
The Bears go into the game with a better record (5-2) than the Seahawks (4-3), which is encouraging, considering the Seahawks have not tried to play any games with Case Keenum or Tyson Bagent. Then again, they did have to play nearly two full games with Drew Lock. So, never mind that.
It's a great test for the Bears. The Pacific Northwest weirdos have made that stadium a really hard place to play and the current team's defense is a real fuckin' pain in the ass. A win for the Bears would be quite a statement. But even if they fall short of that, experiencing this, if in fact they go back there in January, will be a very useful thing.
And, as if this game wasn't cool enough, recent news has made it even more intriguing.
Are Joe Buck and Troy Aikman really fighting?
Wait, no, that's not the news. Nobody really gives a shit about that, do they?
No. The Colts traded for future Hall of Fame guard Quentin Nelson last week, because nothing spices things up quite like an offensive player with a number in the 50s. Whoo!
Wait, that's not really it either. Because the Bears also made a trade last week for a future Hall of Famer. One of, if not the best defensive players in the league. Titans' man mountain Jeffery Simmons.
The Bears are winning with a surprisingly frisky defense, but one whose every success has seemed completely unsustainable. They are great on third down because their excellent Defensive Coordinator Dennis Allen befuddles offenses with a poor team's version of Brian Flores blitz packages. They also benefit from their offense holding the ball for very long stretches which limits how much they actually need to be on the field.
But they were a defense begging for a true disruptor. A guy that other teams have to double team, and then even when he's doubled team still able to wreck everybody's shit. There aren't many of those humans walking the Earth.
So Ryan Poles called up his former roommate Mike Borgonzi, a guy generally managing the Titans who just so happened to have one of those humans. Poles was willing and able to pay a mighty price. Two first round draft picks and a fourth for Simmons and a fifth round pick.
Crazy! How could you possibly part with such a bounty? Don't you know that one of those two first rounders might turn out to be almost as good as Jeffery Simmons some day!
The Les Snead-Sean McVay Rams are known for their "Fuck them picks" mentality. They routinely trade away first and second round draft picks. It all started when they traded two first round picks to move up in the 2016 draft to get Jared Goff. Then in 2018 they traded a first rounder for WR Brandin Cooks. And they went to a Super Bowl. In 2020 they traded two number ones to get cornerback Jalen Ramsey. Then they traded Goff and two number ones to the Lions for Matthew Stafford. And they won a Super Bowl. This year they traded a first round pick for cornerback Trent McDuffie and a first and a second and Jared Verse for Myles Garrett.
That's trading away a lot of first round picks. But what people consistently get wrong about the Rams "Fuck them picks" strategy is that they actually are really good at drafting with the picks they have left. They routinely get good starters like Cooper Kupp, Puka Nacua, Kyren Williams, Byron Young, Ernest Jones, Kobie Turner, etc. Third, fourth, fifth and sixth rounders.
Trading picks for great players has a very limited downside. And when you prove to be able to draft great players with your other picks, it has zero downside.
The news of the Bears trade for Williams was met with two distinct reactions. The fans who immediately went nuts and got excited. And then the morons who immediately declared it an overpay and then bleated on about "Chase Claypool!"
Two ones for Simmons was not an overpay. It was the amount required to get a guy as good as him, especially when you factor in that he's 29 years old, signed for five more years, and while that contract is large, the Titans have already paid the signing bonus. It's exactly the kind of trade you make when you have your quarterback and multiple good skill players on rookie contracts.
You can say you wish Ryan Poles hadn't paid it. But if you insist it's an overpay, it means you think he could have gotten Simmons for less.
The Bengals traded for another great d-tackle before last year's draft. They sent the 10th overall pick to the Giants for Dexter Lawrence. It's a trade that has worked out well already. And, according to the infamous trade value chart, two picks projected to be somewhere from 24 to 32 are the equivalent of the 10th overall pick.
As for the Claypool thing, it's just so lazy. Yes, trading a second round pick for a wide receiver to supposedly help Justin Fields and having that player turn out to be a complete turd was a bad move. But people act like it's the only trade Poles has ever made.
He is the same guy who traded the first overall pick in the 2023 draft to the Panthers for DJ Moore and picks who eventually became Caleb Williams, Darnell Wright, Tyrique Stevenson, Tory Taylor, Luther Burden III and Logan Jones.
Is that a good trade? That seems like a good trade.
He traded a second round pick for Montez Sweat and then signed Montez to be the Bears only reliable pass rusher...and a guy who should become a prime beneficiary of Simmons' (his former Mississippi State teammate) arrival.
He traded running back Khalil Herbert for a pick that became...running back Kyle Monangai.
He traded a fourth round pick for Hall of Fame guard Joe Thuney.
He traded a sixth round pick for guard Jonah Jackson.
For every "meh" trade for Keenan Allen or bad trade for Claypool there have been a lot of good ones.
And, when you trade for a truly great player like Jeffery Simmons, it's impossible to argue with it.
There's also been a fairly egregious re-evaluation of the previous Ryan, Ryan Pace's trade for Khalil Mack.
Pace traded number one picks in 2019 and 2020, a 2020 third and a 2020 sixth for Mack and 2020 second and fifth round picks. And then, the Bears signed Mack to a six-year, $141 million deal that made him the highest paid defensive player ever.
And even with all of that, the Mack trade was a good one. Mack was a dominant player in his first season with the Bears, hell, his first half in the season opener against the Packers was nearly worth the cost by itself. And he was a very good player in his other three seasons with the Bears. He was traded before the 2022 season during the Bears' tank that resulted in the picks that got them Caleb, etc.
The reason the Mack trade "didn't work" had nothing to do with Khalil. Ryan Pace thought Mack was the finishing touch on a team with a good young quarterback and a good young coach. And the problem was that the quarterback was Mitch Trubisky who wasn't good, and the coach was Matt Nagy who was, and remains, a complete moron. The Bears were in need of way too many touches for Khalil to be the finishing one.
Khalil did everything he was supposed to, and it wasn't enough, and it wasn't because of him.
Is Simmons the finishing touch on a Super Bowl champion? Who knows? What he is, is a truly great player added to a talented roster with a real star quarterback and a real star head coach.
It's the kind of move you make when your other stuff is working.
It took Ben Johnson two weeks last year to figure out what to do with what he had. Since a drubbing in Detroit in week two last season the Bears are 17-7. Caleb is playing at an MVP level and so adding a guy playing at Defensive Player of the Year level seems like a solid plan.
Simmons will be easy to spot on the field. At Tennessee he wore bright red long sleeves. In Sunday's OT loss to the Bengals, his former line mates all wore them in his honor. With the Bears he's going to wear bright orange long sleeves.
Oh, he's also easy to spot for another reason. He's the guy throwing offensive linemen at the quarterback.
The Bears keep doing things like real, successful football teams. I know it's shocking. But we're just going to have to get used to it.
(Stadium building not included.)
