Ask around the Chicago Bears fanbase about whether they’d sign off on a Deshaun Watson trade, and the answer would likely be the same. Make it happen yesterday. Years and years of watching other teams enjoy the perks of peak quarterback play have driven many Bears fans to despair. They ask the same question almost every day. When is it going to be their turn?
This is why so much attention is paid to the Watson situation. He clearly wants out of Houston despite signing a massive contract extension prior to this season. A lot of bad blood has developed between him and ownership. Enough to where he has requested a trade and removed any and all Texans-related mentions from his social media. Thus far Houston hasn’t acquiesced to his wishes and has made it clear they don’t intend to.
The two sides have basically entered a staredown. Which one will blink?
Meanwhile, other teams are gearing up to make a run at Watson if and when the Texans finally start taking calls. The Bears included. Word is they were aggressive in pursuit of Matthew Stafford last week before he was ultimately sent to L.A. Rumors are Watson is their end game. Fans certainly hope so. However, not everybody is on board with such an idea. Former Bears defensive end Adewale Ogunleye told NBC Sports Chicago the team has no reason to pay what will be such a heavy price.
“I just feel like general managers, and the public, put a lot of emphasis on the quarterback position,” Ogunleye said. “But in my mind, any year, there’s really just five or six quarterbacks that are elite. Everyone else are really just managers, just managers of the game.”
Ogunleye is speaking from a unique standpoint. He was part of the 2006 Bears team that went to the Super Bowl. That team was quarterbacked by Rex Grossman. In his eyes, it’s the team that reaches championship games, not just the quarterback. The Bears franchise has an identity and they should stick to it. They’ve proven it can work.
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“We know in Chicago we like to play great defense, so we’re going to have good defenses. But have a quarterback that can get the ball down the field a little bit, have somebody that’s serviceable, won’t turn the ball over, and put points up on the board when we have to. To me, that doesn’t sound like rocket science.”
A Deshaun Watson trade would be too expensive to him
The Bears have always been a defensively-minded team. Why deviate from a formula that works. They don’t need to sacrifice so many resources in the pursuit of an “elite” QB when they can simply aim to secure a good enough one and pair him with consistently good defenses. Just look at recent history. San Francisco made it with Jimmy Garoppolo. Los Angeles made it with Jared Goff.
Of course, neither of those guys actually won their respective games. Goff lost to Tom Brady and Garoppolo to Patrick Mahomes. It’s not a coincidence that the superior quarterback almost always wins in big games. The NFL isn’t about great teams anymore. It’s about which team built the best infrastructure around their great quarterback. With all due respect to Ogunleye, his thinking is outdated and also a bit biased.
He hasn’t played in over a decade.
The game has changed a lot since then. There are two types of teams these days. Teams that have quarterbacks and teams that don’t. Need a reminder? The last four #1 defenses in the NFL failed to reach the Super Bowl. The last one that did was the Patriots in 2016 and they gave up 28 points in that game. Only an epic Brady comeback bailed them out. This is why a Deshaun Watson trade remains on the agenda. The Bears have nobody who can do that and haven’t for a long, long time.