The “Dead Zone” Trap: Why Ryan Poles Needs to Sell Pick 25

Let’s get one thing straight before we even start: everybody loves the first round.

It’s the glitz. It’s the glam. It’s the shiny new toy syndrome. We all want to see Roger Goodell walk up to that podium, butcher a name, and hand a Bears jersey to some 22-year-old kid who we’ve convinced ourselves is the next Brian Urlacher or Matt Forte. We want the dopamine hit. We want to believe that at Pick 25, the Chicago Bears are going to land a cornerstone player who will haunt the NFC North for a decade.

But let’s be real for a second — if Ryan Poles actually makes a selection at number 25, he is failing the math test.

I know, I know. Nobody wants to hear about “math” or “value” when there are 4.4-speed edge rushers on the board. We want juice. We want playmakers. But right now, Halas Hall is staring down the barrel of what insiders call the “Dead Zone.” And if we’re being honest with ourselves — brutally honest — the only smart move, the only move that isn’t straight-up malpractice, is to get the hell out of there.

Welcome to the financial cliff. Welcome to the Draft Value trap. Grab a beer, because we’re about to ruin your draft party dreams with some cold, hard reality.

The Myth of the Guaranteed Starter

Here’s the narrative you’re going to hear on ESPN for the next few weeks: “The Bears have a chance to grab a falling star at 25! Maybe an edge rusher slides! Maybe a top-tier tackle falls into their lap!”

It sounds great. It feels good. It’s also complete nonsense.

We tend to look at the draft with rose-colored glasses, remembering the hits and conveniently forgetting the absolute trainwrecks. For every late-first-round steal, there are five guys who are currently selling insurance or playing in the UFL.

Let’s look at the receipts. According to a 35-year study by The Hog Sty using Pro Football Reference data, do you know what the actual hit rate is for an All-Pro player in this specific range?

11%.

Eleven percent. That is a 1-in-10 shot. You have better odds of getting a decent deep-dish pizza at an airport than you do finding a Hall of Famer at pick 25. Fans look at that pick and see a starter; the data looks at that pick and sees a scratch-off lottery ticket that usually pays out exactly zero dollars.

When you stick and pick at 25, you aren’t drafting a sure thing. You are drafting a coin flip with a weighted edge towards failure. And yet, teams treat this spot like it’s gold. They hold onto it with a death grip, terrified of missing out on “their guy,” ignoring the fact that “their guy” is statistically likely to be “just a guy.”

Ryan Poles has done a decent job of identifying talent — look at the 2025 class — but even the best GMs whiff. The draft is a crapshoot. The only way to beat the house is to buy more tickets, not pay extra for one ticket that has the same lousy odds as the cheaper ones.

The “CFO” Perspective: Why We’re Overpaying for Mediocrity

Okay, so the talent pool flattens out. That’s bad. But here is the financial kicker that makes sticking at 25 not just risky, but financially stupid.

The NFL rookie wage scale is rigid. It’s a ladder. And right there at the bottom of the first round, there is a cliff that nobody talks about.

If the Bears draft a player at Pick 25, they are locking themselves into a fully guaranteed contract worth roughly $19 million. That’s the price tag. You pay that whether the kid is a stud or a total bust.

Now, let’s say Poles trades back. Let’s say he drops to Pick 40 — early second round. He picks up extra draft capital and he drafts a player there.

The cost for that Pick 40 contract? $12 million.

Do the math. That is a $7 million difference. That is a 40% markup for a player who, statistically speaking, has the exact same chance of becoming an All-Pro as the guy you’d take 15 spots later.

Why in the name of Halas would you pay a 40% premium for the same odds?

In the real world, if I tried to sell you a Honda Civic for $30,000 and then told you I had the exact same Civic around the corner for $18,000, you’d look at me like I was insane if I bought the expensive one. Yet NFL teams do this every single year. They fall in love with the “First Round Pick” label. They want the prestige. They want the 5th-year option (which, let’s be honest, is only valuable if the player is actually good, which we’ve established is rare here).

That $7 million in savings? That’s real money. That’s a veteran depth piece. That’s a special teams ace. That’s cap rollover for when we inevitably need to pay Caleb Williams the GDP of a small country.

Spending $19 million on a lottery ticket when you can get it for $12 million is bad business. It’s inefficient. And if Poles wants to build a dynasty, he needs to think like a CFO, not a fan.

The “Need” for Volume

We are not one player away. I know, I know, the team is looking better. 11-6 this season was a incredible. But let’s not pretend this roster is flawless. We saw what happened when injuries hit the secondary. We saw the gaps in the trenches.

The Bears don’t need one savior at Pick 25. They need three solid contributors.

By trading back, you aren’t just saving money — you’re acquiring ammunition. You’re turning one 11% shot into two or three shots. Maybe one of those is a bust. Maybe one is just a special teamer. But if you have three picks in the top 100 instead of just one in the “Dead Zone,” your chances of walking away with a starter skyrocket.

Look at the teams that stay good forever. Look at Baltimore. Look at Philly. Look at what Kansas City does. They don’t panic. They don’t reach. When they sit at the bottom of the first round, they almost always look to move. They let desperate teams come up to grab a QB or a WR, and they happily slide back, collect extra picks, and draft a Pro Bowler in the second round while paying him half the price.

We need to stop trying to be the smartest guy in the room who “sees something nobody else sees” at Pick 25. We need to be the guy who owns the casino. The guy who plays the odds.

The Psychological Trap

The hardest part of this strategy isn’t the math. The math is easy. The math screams “SELL.”

The hardest part is the ego.

It takes guts to trade out of the first round. It’s boring. It kills the draft party vibe. Your buddies are going to text you “WTF is Poles doing?” when the trade alert flashes across the screen. It feels like a retreat.

But great GMs don’t care about your draft party. Great GMs care about January.

Ryan Poles has shown he can be bold — he traded the number one overall pick. He traded for Sweat. He’s not afraid to swing. But this is a different kind of swing. This is the discipline to not swing. This is the discipline to look at a board that has flattened out, realize there is no difference between the guy at 25 and the guy at 45, and exploit the teams that are desperate to make a splash.

Let the New England Patriots or the Broncos waste capital moving up. Let them overpay. Let them eat that $19 million contract for a guy who might be a situational pass rusher at best.

We need to be the team that stockpiles. We need to be the team that builds a roster so deep that one injury doesn’t derail the season.

Final Verdict

If the Bears stay at 25, I’ll root for the kid. Obviously. I’ll watch the highlights, I’ll talk myself into his potential, and I’ll hope he defies the odds.

But deep down? I’ll know we got played.

We got played by the allure of the first round. We got played by the fear of missing out. We got played by the inability to do simple math.

The “Dead Zone” is real. It’s where value goes to die. It’s where GMs get fired because they bet their jobs on coin flips that cost a premium.

Ryan Poles has a chance to ace this test. He has a chance to show the league that the Bears aren’t just lucky — they’re smart. They’re calculated.

Trade the pick. Save the cash. Stack the deck.

It’s not sexy. It won’t win the headlines the next morning. But three years from now, when we have three starters contributing to a Super Bowl run instead of one expensive bust warming the bench? We’ll look back at Pick 25 and thank god we sold it.

Am I crazy? Or is the math just that obvious? You tell me.

Bear Down.