good dolphin wrote:
veganfan21 wrote:
good dolphin wrote:
The Doctor Of Style wrote:
denisdman wrote:
Moves cannot be made in hindsight. Based all evidence we have to date, Justin is just not good enough. Caleb is simply a hope, and one that many say a top prospect coming out of college.
WYC? Trades are also 2nd guessed. And if Fields turns out to be good (highly likely) then this 8ne will be too. As it should be. This trade is a defining moment for Poles. If he misses then he should be shitcanned out the door.
The trade and situation leading up to it has already provided some definition for him. There is no objective way to define that trade as either a win for Poles or well handled.
What would be a win? Teams clearly didn't want to pay up for an ineffective guy whose option year was approaching. In the end, the market spoke the truth, and Chicagoans continue to live in fantasy land.
You don't know that.
We do know that three other teams were bidding for Fields at the time he was traded, with better offers than the Steelers. This was reported by Cronin, whose work I heavily respect. It was seconded by Wilbon, who indicated it was at least a 4th. Four teams bidding is a good market. It doesn't take too much speculation to think that if he let that develop, he could have gotten something even better than a 4th.
You also don't know what teams were offering at the Combine, where it has been reported that multiple teams inquired. Poles was asking for too high of a price (I can only speculate it was a #1). Could he have created a bidding war at the Combine and gotten a 2-3? Several outlets were reporting a #2 and a #4 was the price teams were offering.
I think the latter part of your post is incorrect - the second round, third round, etc stuff was the initial buzz but as Breer and especially Graziano noted, teams didn't want to play ball on Poles' terms and instead let free agency play out. Graziano's reporting was most damaging and sobering since he said teams didn't view Fields as more of a sure thing than retreads like Lock and Darnold, which is why teams decided - correctly I think - to just pay money to guys like that instead of dropping more precious capital (picks) on Fields who isn't a surefire thing and who also has an option year coming up.
I also like Cronin but Biggs directly refuted her report on 670. Diana Russeini from the Athletic also was skeptical. Both suggested Cronin's report - which I think is just parroting something Ian Rapaport said - was Halas Hall spin to mitigate the bad look of the low return.
Lastly, i think the elephant in the room is the 25m teams have to decide on by May. Had this discussion happened last year perhaps the market would be better because you have two years of rookie contract Fields instead of just one. That's why it made sense to pay more for Pickett because you've got two years of cost control with him instead of one for Fields. And I think Fields played slightly better than Pickett last year but again, per Graziano, it's not like Fields' play clearly separated himself from the pack.