Can we start talking about trades?

Desperate teams do anything as you saw with the Panthers trade for young. Maybe a playoff team is one WR away from winning it all. 

Yeah I'm trying to avoid the whole thing about tying up a ton of cap on the OL, UNLESS somebody is dumb enough to trade away a star center but nobody in their right mind would do that.

We can fix T and G in the draft. We'll have a ton of money in FA to pay a C if one hits FA.

I do like motm's idea from yesterday about using our first and Carolina's second to trade up in the draft if we can get a franchise LT. It may not even take the Carolina pick to do that.

Using a draft pick point chart, pretend that we draft 20th in the first. That pick is worth 850 points. 20th will not get us that franchise LT unless this draft is loaded with them. It would get us an amazing G which I'm fine with, but we need LT. There's no point in having a stud IOL if Braxton Jones keeps getting bull rushed five yards back into Caleb every play.

The Carolina second is worth 580.

Our second would be 370.

So, 1220 in points using our second gets us to 11th or 12th.

Using Carolina's second gets us into the top 10.

www.drafttek.com/nfl-trade-value-chart.asp#:~:text=Most%20Recent%20Update:%20October%201,%202024

Poles has shown he's not afraid to attack weaknesses with mid-season deals.  Claypool was obviously a huge miss and Sweat was a huge hit.

It's a little early to say specifically but every year there are teams who are packing it in and looking to the future mid-season.  If there is an iOL on one of them you can pry away, yeah I think Poles should be making calls.

I just don't see a team wanting to give up a solid IOL at this point of the season.  I was reading a few weeks ago about the shortage of good ones right now.  If you have one, a solid young player - you'd be wise to think mighty hard before you part with him, even if you're thinking of a rebuild.  I think the Bears would probably find that any team wanting to part with an IOL right now is dealing away a guy more like Claypool or Nate Davis.  And even if a team would want to deal one away (like the Sweat deal we made on the DL that took a 2nd round pick), wouldn't you rather keep that 2nd round pick and get one of the best IOL in the draft on a rookie contract for the next 4 years? 

Even if Poles would want to over-react like the Claypool deal, it would not be a "buyers market" for the Bears right now unless there was something wrong with the OL player offered (old, injury history, problem child... you are not going to get a good deal on a solid starting player... at least that's my thought).  I think the IOL ship has sailed for this season.  Ride it out and do better this next off season.