Still Gotta Come Through Chicago
Bears Trades, Bulls Wins, And A New Sox Manager
Happy Friday Chicago!
Today was either a good week in Chicago or a great one, only time will tell.
On Tuesday, it wasn’t the Jews holding down Kyrie this time, but instead Ayo Dosunumu.
The Bulls win over the Nets was sweet, but holding Kyrie to 4 points on 2-12 shooting was even sweeter. Zach LaVine’s 20 points in the fourth were a hat tip to the city of Chicago and its Jewish population.
What seems relevant now is what I wrote almost a year ago today about Kyrie Irving while, of course, talking about the most recent Bears loss to the Packers.
Murphy’s Law is the idea that if anything can go wrong, it will. It exists in all places, but specifically, it resides on the Bears side of the football anytime they play Green Bay.
The analogy I’ve been thinking of is Kyrie Irving. He’s currently away from his team because he refuses to get vaccinated, right? Whether you think he is a moron for his vax decision or have put a poster up in your room commemorating him for his bravery, he is nonetheless a headache for the Brooklyn Nets.
But the fact of the matter is that if it wasn’t this — his vaccination status — it would undoubtedly be something else. In other words, signing Kyrie will mean headaches for your team. His health could be stellar, social justice could be achieved, he could have his ideal contract, and still, he would find a reason to be bothered with the world around him. And he would miss time because of it.
Ah, yes, and here we are again, as Kyrie is suspended now by the Nets for at least five games for promoting an anti-semitic film and then refusing to apologize for it or say that he’s not anti-semitic. Tough ask, I know.
The only problem with Kyrie’s suspension is that the only people that lose out in this situation are those that did nothing wrong. Except for maybe the Nets, who simultaneously are about to hire a coach who is currently suspended from coaching another team because he was making crude comments to women. But Kyrie’s teammates lose his services and the fans will watch their team continue to struggle with him once again not playing.
Meanwhile, Kyrie gets to follow his fallacious circular logic (and not play basketball, which he clearly is all for), where he is able to promote the idea that Jews have inappropriate rule over society, and then when he gets suspended, say, ‘See, I told you.’ It’s how all conspiracy theorists operate. What they don’t realize is that their way of thinking is the intellectual equivalent of a first grader saying “I know you are, but what am I?”
I’m glad, either way, that we bust his ass in the last game he played.
Plus, I don’t know what his point is. I personally love the Jews right now. They obviously don’t maliciously control society, but clearly do control the weather. And it’s been nice as hell this week! To all of my Members of the Tribe out there, I appreciate that.
Social media’s fitness or lifestyle influencers will post something with a caption that says, like, “What is stopping you from doing these five things to improve your health every morning?” And they consist of: going on a nature walk, stretching your hips for 30 minutes, sitting in silence and saying positive affirmations to yourself, and making a fruit and veggie smoothie.
What’s stopping me? I don’t know, but the first thing that comes to mind is the fucking job that I have, asshole?
Chicago sports — and sports in general — were almost too much to handle this week. I wasn’t even able to fully digest half of the happenings until tonight. The Bulls played and won twice, the Sox hired a manager, the World Series is going on, the NFL trade deadline was nuts, the Bears traded Roquan Smith and traded for Chase Claypool, the NBA (as mentioned above) didn’t have a single quiet day.
On top of all of that, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released their final home health payment rule for CY 2023! For the love of God, give me a moment to process one thing at a time.
So, as I write about each of these things, it will almost be a practice of delivering my opinion, but also somewhat forming it, in the process. Let’s dive in. And hop in the comments afterward to chime in.
The biggest news of the week, at least for the purpose of this newsletter, remains what the Bears did. In the last newsletter, we covered the Robert Quinn deal. That felt like a big deal at the time.
A week later and the Bears have traded away their best player and gone out and gotten Justin Fields a receiver.
Below, we’ll break down each trade. But the first thing to remember throughout all of this is that every new regime in every major sport — but especially in football — wants to get their guys in there. Even when a new CEO takes over in corporate America, you rarely hear them on their first earnings call saying “the last CEO was awesome, man, and we’re just kind of going to follow the same path.” It just doesn’t happen. New guys in charge want to show they’re in charge and get their own people in the building. Then, if they’re successful, they’re able to turn around and say “see, that was all me.”
If the Bears end up successful in the coming years, Poles will really be able to say that. He has cut or traded the majority of last year’s roster at this point. It obviously started this past offseason, but in this upcoming offseason, he will truly be able to mold the Bears as he sees fit. Based on your evaluation of the last week, you may feel excited or concerned about that.
He won’t be able to take credit for Fields, though. Or will he? He is, at least, the one who brought in Luke Getsy this offseason, who has seemingly figured out a game plan that works — and then some — with Fields.
Over the past two weeks, the Bears have scored touchdowns on six of their 10 red zone trips. If I had told the fans around me at the Bears/Commanders game that that would happen over the next couple of games, they would have rushed me to a psych ward. Over that time period, he has rushed for touchdowns, passed for touchdowns, completed close to 70% of his passes, and most importantly, turned haters into believers in Chicago.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times. The only thing that truly matters about this season is Fields and his progression. From that perspective, the season is finally going well. But hold this thought.
Ravens Get: Roquan Smith
Bears Get: 2023 second-round draft pick, 2023 fifth-round draft pick, and LB A.J. Klein (who is 31 and has started 81 games in his career)
Forget statistics, Chicago’s love for Roquan, his career as a Bear, or any other quote. This is probably the most important aspect of this deal. And it came from Poles following the trade:
"There's a part of me that's bummed because this was a guy that I thought was going to be here for a long time," he said. "I felt like we put a lot of effort forward to get that done and we came up short. We couldn't find common ground. And that's just part of the business, which I think we all understand."
The second part of that quote, specifically. Smith does not have an agent, which probably screwed this entire process from the start. But if the Bears weren’t going to find common ground with him as his contract was set to expire at the end of the year, the right move was to trade him.
The answer is just not as simple as “pay him more!” Poles is right to have a number in his head, and also, it is very clear that Smith disrupted the relationship between him and the new front office — and potentially the entire organization — when he requested the Bears trade him, said the front office was acting in bad faith, and called on the McCaskeys! to do something to salvage it. That’s all while he was being paid to sit on the sidelines and not being fined, a rarity in holdout situations.
His play: Smith is one of the best players to put on a Bears uniform over the last decade. There’s no doubt about that. He’s also currently leading the league in tackles and has 2.5 sacks. So this is going to sound crazy to say, but I think he has looked worse this year than he has in past years. I really do. I think he’s looked great in some games and bad in others. He’s making contact and tackles further down the field, which aren’t as impactful of plays. A game away from the halfway mark, he has four tackles for loss. In 2020, he had 18 over a 16-game season. That’s not total evidence of my prior point, but it’s helpful, at least. I think he is still a spectacular, top-100 player in the NFL. But for people saying he’s having the best year of his career, I don’t find that even close to true.
His position: Linebackers that don’t rush the passer or come off the edge are running backs in today’s game. Running backs do not get paid anymore because they are a dime a dozen. You can argue that the really good ones still do. Sure, but: either those contracts don’t work out or it’s because they’re pseudo running backs — and more half running backs, half wide receivers. Based on how the game is played today, standup linebackers are just not as valuable to a team’s success as they used to be, and therefore, they will own less and less of a team’s cap sheet. Giving $100 million to Roquan would mean less money to build around Justin Fields. Less wide receivers, less linemen. Defensively, it would mean not investing in the pass rush, something the Bears have severely lacked this season. Quarterback, offensive weapons, the ones who guard those offensive weapons on the outside, and those who rush the quarterback will get the most money for the foreseeable future. That’s just the bottom line.
The return: People struggle with the returns on trades a lot, and specifically NFL trades. There is so much context that matters. First of all, this is not the NBA, so a really great player is not always going to net a first-round pick. Plus, the context here is that Baltimore is essentially giving away two relatively valuable picks — especially the second rounder — for a rental for the rest of the season. In essence, the Ravens gave away a second and fifth rounder for the right to maybe pay Smith what the Bears would not. I have no real problem with what the Bears got in this trade.
Of course, these are the things we’d rather not think about when trading away our best players, who we’ve grown to know and love, right? The Bears are rebuilding. These moves happen during a rebuild. It sucked — sucked — watching the Cubs trade away all of their World Series players. But in retrospect, the moves made sense (sans Schwarber, who they didn’t even fucking trade!). And that’s even in a sport with no salary cap.
It’s not that the Bears think they are going to get a better player than Roquan in the second round. There’s almost a 0% chance they will. But this is a value play. It’s based on position, team need, the team’s current position, and failed contract negotiations.
I was pissed at Poles for not going after more wide receivers this offseason. I was pissed at him for not trading Robert Quinn at his highest value before the season, if they were going to end up trading him, which they did. So I cannot in good faith look at this move as anything but a necessary one.
Again, it sucks to lose Roquan. But in the end, I think anger over losing him right now is missing the forest for our favorite trees.
Steelers Get: Bears second-round draft pick
Bears Get: Chase Claypool
Full disclosure, the first thing I thought when I heard the Bears got Chase Claypool was… man, I fucking hate that guy.
When I was straying from God’s light and on TikTok, he would be on my feed, making the dumbest and douchiest videos imaginable. (This was in 2020, to be fair.)
Of course, he also essentially lost the Steelers a game last year when he got up after a first down with 30 seconds left in the game, slowly motioned “first down” with his arm (and the ball in his hand), all while his teammates urged him to put the ball down. Then, he tried to tussle with his teammate who was trying to get the ball from him, which jarred the ball loose. To make matters worse, he then yelled at his teammates after the fact. It is truly one of the funniest things I have seen on a football field over the last five years, something I’ve mocked repeatedly, but also something that would give me an aneurism if he were on my team at the time.
He also is the impetus of one of my favorite Mike Tomlin quotes of all time.
“I think maybe some music would help,” Claypool said. “We have music in warmups. That’s always fun. People are dancing and having fun. Maybe music would make practice a little more fun and up-tempo. That’s my one suggestion but Coach T has been doing this a lot longer than I have.”
“Claypool plays wideout and I’ll let him do that,” Tomlin said. “I’ll formulate the practice approach, and that division of labor is probably appropriate.”
That division of labor is probably appropriate gets me every time.
But, all of that aside, let’s talk about Chase Claypool, the player.
First of all, he was drafted in the second round. And, again, the chance that the Bears would draft a better player at wide receiver than the already-proven Claypool in the second round is very low. Why’d the Steelers give him up for that, then? Hopefully it’s not because he’s still a douche bag and they hate him. I think, moreso, it’s that they, too, are rebuilding and already have two wide receivers in Diontae Johnson and George Pickens that are far superior to almost anything on the Bears roster currently.
Every Bears wide receiver right now looks like a marathon runner. Claypool, on the other hand, is 6’4 and 240 pounds. Right there, that changes the entire dynamic of the Bears offense. He has 153 receptions, 2,000 yards, and 14 touchdowns over 2 and a half years. Complaining about that production coming to the Bears, as our quarterback develops, doesn’t seem sensical.
I admit that I also did not like the Bears turning around and giving away their own second-round draft pick for him at this stage. At first, at least. But it makes a lot of sense. The free agency class of wide receivers is not good this year — a fact Poles mentioned — and banking on rookies to come in and make a difference is both a hit-and-miss proposition and also one that again delays things. We wanted the Bears to go out and get a legit wide receiver. They did.
Others have already repeatedly mentioned what this does for Darnell Mooney, so I won’t go there. But more good players on the outside means better QB play and better wide receiver play. A rising tide lifts all boats.
Plus, if it were true that the Packers wanted Claypool and were offering their second rounder for him, and the Bears had to up the ante, that is both acceptable and hilarious. The Bears went out and got Fields a guy. The lowly Packers got nothing.
I have the feeling this trade will be one that Bears fans almost immediately like after trashing it. He’s playing on Sunday, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he already changes things then.
Don’t waste games with Fields. I love the bifurcated approach that Poles is taking with the roster midseason. Get value back for players on the defense — the team isn’t going anywhere anyway — and don’t sacrifice Fields in the process. If we go back up to our modus operandi of Fields’ progression, these two moves check both boxes. Don’t sacrifice the future of the team, but also get Fields help so he doesn’t mentally crumble.
(By the way, getting Claypool does not mean we cannot get more wide receivers in the draft or on the free agent market.)
I am okay with a quibble here and there on the processes of these trades. I understand thinking Claypool was not the right target (but I’ve grown to believe he was) and I understand, of course, not wanted to trade Roquan Smith at all.
In the end, these are the easiest moves Poles will make. The next batch of moves he will make will ultimately be the ones that decide if he is a successful leader or not.
We’ll see!
The White Sox were the last team to hire a manager. Alas, they have. And it’s not Ozzie Guillen, someone that’s friends with Jerry Reinsdorf, or Miguel Cairo. That’s wins all around right there.
It seems to me, at least, like Rick Hahn actually had the opportunity to do his job for once.
The Sox officially hired Pedro Grifol on Thursday.
The first question is why, if he’s such a good candidate, didn’t the Royals hire him? I did some digging. It appears that Royals fans love the guy, and wouldn’t have minded if he was the next coach, but that both they and the new front office there wanted a fresh start and someone from outside the organization to take over. You know, kind of like the White Sox.
Grifol is from Miami. He played baseball at Florida State and was in the minor leagues for nearly a decade. He then was the director of the Mariners’ minor leagues before becoming a minor league coach in the Royals organization. Eventually, he was promoted to bench coach in 2020.
What comes next is about all you need to know about this hire, which I think is a good one. Even if I didn’t look into Grifol at all, this anecdote — from Rick Hahn — would make me believe that he has a much greater chance at being a good manager for the White Sox than a bad one.
“The process, it was very extensive. At one point, about two-thirds of the way through it, I was on the phone with Jerry [Reinsdorf] and talking through the candidates and where things sat and what was next, and he said, ‘You know what this process reminds me of?’ I didn’t quite know where the chairman was going at that point, but he said, ‘It reminds me of the process with the Bulls when we hired Artūras (Karnišovas).’ That made me proud. Although we did not necessarily coordinate or get any blueprint with them, I know they went about it in a way where they were open-minded, looked outside the organization, got recommendations from a diverse group of individuals from around the game and made a sensational hire.”
Hahn later said that you’d likely see him smiling more this season. Here’s why he believes that, in addition to the above quote:
“This the part where I need to catch myself a little bit from going too far over the top,” Hahn said. “A little too gushing, perhaps. But we sit here today and with the hiring of Pedro feel like we are taking a major step to putting ourselves back on track, on the trajectory we all felt we were on over the previous seasons prior to last season’s disappointment. In Pedro, we are hiring someone who is a renowned communicator, a modern baseball mind who is seeking to build a cohesive and inclusive clubhouse environment, and one where the attention to detail and the accountability will be priorities.”
Joe McEwing, who has been with in different roles since 2011, is also out.
If this cleaning house is anything like the Bulls two years ago, it is fantastic news for Sox fans. The only difference is that the Sox already have a lot of good players in place, where the Bulls did not.
In baseball, I don’t believe managers matter all that much. In essence, they are either good enough to make a team a game or two better, or they’re so bad that they can help ruin an entire season. Tony La Russa wasn’t the only reason for the Sox struggles this past year, but he was damn sure a part of it.
The circus has left Chicago. That’s the first step. The second step is simply putting the right players in a position to win, and having the general manager — who I do believe is a good one — and the manager on the same page. Finally, the Sox will have that.
Grifol came across as a guy who understands the modern game and takes accountability seriously, two things the Sox desperately need. Paired with being foreign to the organization up until this point, that is about all you could ask for.
Last week, I was on Patrick Williams island begging three others left there with me not to swim for the mainland. The waves were eroding the shore, I was holding onto my tree, and I took cover as a tropical storm came in.
Then Billy Donovan made a proclamation to Patrick, through the media. Because he knows — like I know — the type of player this kid can be.
Williams responded. In his first seven games, his defense was on and off, and he was averaging 7.1 points on 42% shooting in about 21 minutes per game.
Over the last two games, he’s averaging 14 points per game on 63% shooting in 31 minutes per game. He’s also averaging 6 rebounds.
It’s a small sample size, but the previous seven games are as well. We’ve seen enough bright spots from the Young Man Patrick Williams to know he’s capable of being a serious contributor on this team. A guy who defends well, makes open shots and takes aggressive drives to the rim that free up his veteran teammates.
The Bulls, somehow, have had three back-to-backs in their first nine games. Over this week, they beat both the Nets and the Hornets. Against Charlotte, they yet again dominated a lesser team throughout.
Against the Nets, Zach LaVine had his much-needed breakout game, allowing the Bulls to overcome an 11-point deficit by scoring 20 in the fourth. Ayo’s two steals in the last six minutes of the game were huge. He’s averaging 12.5/4/3 on 50% shooting, 38% shooting from three, and 100% shooting from the line. And he stopped anti-semitism.
The Bulls could have won every single one of their games to date, outside of the home opener against the Cavaliers.
Lonzo is allegedly progressing, and meanwhile, the Bulls have two great point guards right now in Goran Dragic and Ayo. The second unit is outscoring their opponents by 6 points per 100 possessions, an unreal number. They’ve lifted this team thus far.
Arturas Karnisovas much maligned offseason has looked fantastic thus far. It’s not his fault he wasn’t allowed to spend in the tax, just like it’s not Rick Hahn’s fault that Reinsdorf wanted La Russa in the first place.
We’re at Boston tonight on ESPN. LETS GO BULLS!
Thank you for reading! I love you all. Tell someone to subscribe today and I’ll love you more. Have a great weekend.
Why would you hate the Ozzie hire? I get he is probably a high risk/high reward hire and you probably hate his personality. However, I think if there is one guy that can get these younger Latin American players to actually care about winning, he’s your guy. Not disagreeing with you just curious.
Also what do you think about a Lonzo trade around the deadline? What do you think we could get for him? Love or hate it?
Back from the dead. Ryan Poles has my support 100% I love everything he is doing. I feel like we could have gotten a little more for Roquan but still love the move. If he doesn’t want to be in Chicago building something special then get the hell out. When i saw that we gave up a second rounder for claypool I was ready to march to Halas hall with an angry mob bearing pitch forks and flaming torches, but I have since calmed down. Steelers had him playing in the slot and not maximizing his potential, which hopefully Getsy will do. And it certainly doesn’t hurt to get fields some help. Couldn’t agree more - only thing that matters is that we see progression from fields. This season isn’t about wins and losses. if we lose out and fields continues to progress, frankly I would be a happy fan, higher draft pick and knowing we have our guy for the next 15 years.
How about that Patrick Williams guy…never doubted him for a second!! Baby claw!!