Roquan Smith’s return to practice ended another of the problematic situations general manager Ryan Poles faced in his first year.
The entire holding process showed how little leverage the player has in such situations, while also highlighting what happens when neophytes fight.
Until Smith went public with a letter blasting the Bears, he was as close to a model citizen as you could get in this situation. No one could have expected a player seeking an extension to put in all the voluntary and mandatory offseason work, but Smith did. Meanwhile, starter Robert Quinn is under contract for nearly twice as much as Smith this year and missed it all in the offseason. Give an account.
However, publicly ripping the Bears with Poles sitting high as a first-year GM was one of the dumbest strategies Smith could have taken.
The Poles would have to do something extremely damaging to the organization to knock him down in his first year, and negotiating a contract with a weak point guard won’t do it.
With the only thing he could do was turn down services at his expense from a team that most people believed would struggle regardless of whether he played, Smith only hurt his own chances of a potential contract in Chicago by withheld or withheld or whatever.
His trade request may actually come to fruition in the future, as the Poles will have nearly unlimited salary cap cash and a full complement of draft picks to find another weakside linebacker at a lower price in the offseason if Smith somehow a disappointment. Or he could just tag Smith and keep him around for another year at the average salary of the top five players.
However, the Bears are not coming out unscathed from all this debacle.
Here are the lessons learned from the 2022 Great Roquan Smith Hold-In Training Camp on both sides.
1. Get an agent
And if you fire yours, get another that is sanctioned by the players union.
“No, I don’t regret not having an agent during this process,” Smith said. “I think it’s just a bunch of excuses when people say that. Times are changing and I feel like players want to be at the table to have full transparency to know what’s actually going on, what’s being said, because a lot of people can say a lot of different things, but when you’re there alone, you see it with your own eyes, you know for sure what’s going on.”
That’s exactly why you hire an agent you trust, for complete transparency. Hiring someone you don’t trust would tend to do the opposite and doing it for yourself is the last thing in the world a player should do because not only is he playing against people who are into this kind of things for a living, but they also allow the emotional to come into play. The agent is a filter for this. Smith admitted this, although his conclusion that agents were unnecessary was rather ludicrous.
“It was very emotional for me because I usually tend not to express my opinion that much, but I thought it was time to do it,” Smith said, referring to his decision to go public with his grievances. “And there were a lot of different things going on there. A lot of different speculation and things of that nature and I just wanted the fans to know and the great city of Chicago to know what was really going on because no one really knew. A lot of people were caught in the dark, so I just wanted that to be known.”
They’re still in the dark because Smith didn’t disclose the money requests and offers, but the emotion was evident with the way he lashed out at the Poles in his letter, via NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport. Emotion only gets in the way of negotiations.
“I just really learned how the business really works,” Smith said.
Not exactly. He learned how a small part of one aspect of it works or can work if you don’t hire a real agent. Continuing down this path in the future only leads to a bad outcome.
2. There’s a reason players miss work in the offseason
This is the reason. Alan Robinson did, and it burned him. He wasn’t on the same page in the passing game with Justin Fields or anyone else who played quarterback last year then got hurt. And he missed all of the offseason work.
It’s different with the defender.
In any case, hitting is not allowed. So what’s the use of linebackers in the offseason other than learning a new defense. The Tampa-2 style used by the Bears is simple, and Matt Eberflus said it. That’s why he says players can come in as free agents and pick it up quickly. So Smith had to skip all the offseason work and let the Bears know he had big intent.
Perhaps he would have received a more serious offer.
3. Bears can still be cheap
For decades, the Bears have had to overcome this largely overblown accusation that they do things on the cheap. We’re back in the days of George Halas, and things were a lot different then.
However, a team saddled with such a tag doesn’t want to get back in the saddle right away.
There is no reason to doubt Smith’s claim that the Bears wanted de-escalator clauses in the contract. This is such a ridiculous claim that no one would make it up.
Unfortunately, it is low to ask for something like that. It’s completely unusual for NFL players selected in Round 1 to be asked to settle for this, especially with the eighth pick.
It’s cheap. Sounds like what Brian Doyle Murray did in the movie Christmas Vacation when he gave everyone a jelly of the month club membership instead of their expected Christmas bonus.
Shame on Ryan Poles and shame on George McCaskey.
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Poles may be inexperienced, but you don’t need experience to avoid being stingy.
4. Compliments are only good, money talks
McCaskey praised Roquan Smith when the team fired Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace as some of the players who got it right.
The Poles swore he liked Smith.
“My feelings about Roquan haven’t changed at all,” he said after the letter blasting the Bears’ negotiations came out. “I think he is a very good football player. I love the kid, I love what he’s done on the pitch – which makes me really disappointed with (where) we’re at right now. I thought we’d be in a better situation, to be completely honest with you.”
The way to be in a better situation was by paying Smith.
This begs the question, how much does the current regime really love Smith?
5. Shut your mouth
As much as the media and fans love him, one of the worst things anyone can do is air their grievances in the public eye.
Smith alienated an owner who apparently liked him. Regardless of what the Poles said, he couldn’t like it. If the Bears struggle to keep Smith at a large amount in the future, he may have already cast the deciding vote for them with his mouth.
By saying he was betting on himself on Saturday, Smith correctly described the future situation. However, he puts himself in an unnecessarily difficult position. Bears are less likely to do so.
If he had done everything by the rules quietly without defaming the team, the Bears could always sign him to a bigger deal next March before free agency and there would be no face-saving on either side. Now there will be.
6. Never say never
Smith himself decided that the conversation was over.
Never say never. A few high-performance games during the regular season may have convinced the Poles to go along with what he wanted.
You never know, but burning bridges never makes sense.
7. Be proven before you demand
Smith has two second-team All-Pro selections. However, players and fans have yet to select him as a Pro Bowl player. Pro Football Focus rated him just the 62nd best defensive end in the league last year. It finally cracked the top 100 for NFL Network, a vote taken by players. But it was only the 84th.
More importantly, Smith hasn’t proven he can be a weakside linebacker yet in the 4-3, which is how the Bears plan to use him.
It’s easier to make wild demands when you’ve already shown the team how indispensable you are. When the Colts paid nearly $100 million for Darius Leonard over five years, they had already seen what he could do in a few years in their scheme.
Perhaps it would have been more appropriate for Smith to be more proven in this 4-3 before going public and letting you know what fly. Even a few games could make a big difference.
It might not be a conventional negotiation to go a few games into the regular season and put in some demands and then come out with a contract because Smith could get hurt in those few games and then where would he be?
On the other hand, he needs to play 17 games and survive unscathed. He must excel this process. The odds were better if he played just a few games first and then fulfilled the contract.
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