It was a mild surprise when the news dropped that the Chicago Bears were trading star pass rusher Khalil Mack to the Los Angeles Chargers. Though he missed ten games last season due to season-ending foot surgery, Mack had six sacks in the seven appearances he made. He was still an effective player. Fans felt the new regime should’ve stayed the course with him and Robert Quinn as a pass rush tandem.
Still, it was difficult to fault GM Ryan Poles for the move. Even with Mack, the odds of making the playoffs in 2022 seemed remote. This roster is old and getting older, marred by bloated contracts, and too thin in too many areas. It was well past time for somebody to start cleaning things up. So Poles did what he had to do, shipping Mack and his hefty contract to L.A. for 2nd and 6th round picks.
However, it may not have been as simple as that.
Getting younger and securing future assets was important with that deal, but the motivation might’ve been deeper. It is possible Mack’s health was a bigger question than some people realized. Enough to where Poles and the coaching staff weren’t comfortable continuing to keep him around at his price tag. Albert Breer of the MMQB revealed the extent of the issue in his recent column.
“I’ll be interested to see if Mack’s toe injury affects him as a Charger. And the reason is that it’s a pretty rare one for a football player. That doesn’t mean it’s any more or less serious than other injuries, it may just be a little trickier to manage (or maybe it won’t be).”
People might be confused by this but rest assured, toe injuries are no joke in the NFL. Especially for pass rushers. They require full range of motion in their feet to achieve maximum acceleration and burst off the snap. When they don’t have it, their effectiveness is instantly reduced. If this toe injury is supposedly going to be a recurring issue with Khalil Mack, it makes even more sense the Bears parted ways when they did.
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If he played another season and missed more games due to that issue, there is no way they’d have gotten near the return they did a few weeks ago. The chance for one more good season despite almost zero prospects of winning the Super Bowl wasn’t worth the risk for Poles.
