| 26 March 2010
If you haven't heard by now, the Bears have apparently placed team captain Alex Brown on the trading block. Word leaked out last night via the Chicago Tribune and Bears fans are in a full on uproar over the idea of trading one of the best players on the defense, but also the most consistent players.
The decision to put Brown on the trading block comes as more than a bit of a surprise but it also seems to be quite perplexing. Brown has been everything Bears fans demand out of their players on a number of different levels.
He's been a solid locker room presence, a team leader, and he gives all effort for a full 16 games and never misses a game. Brown has played in all 16 games in every year of his career but one his rookie year he was in for 15 of the 16 games. Probably more than anything Brown HATES TO LOSE and that type of attitude, that type of near anger when the Bears do lose is what this team needs as it tries to get back to the playoffs.
The most fair point I've made regarding the Bears possibly being rid of Brown is that there are younger players on the roster that need the chance to prove themselves and conversely the Steelers and Patriots do this with older and popular players. Israel Idonijae's return to the outside is the move that most makes Brown expendable, Lovie Smith wants to see how good Idonijae can be from the left DE spot.
Idonijae does deserve the chance to play and develop at the DE spot as he was scheduled to do heading into the off-season last year. But due to a different set of circumstances Idonijae was forced inside to help at the DT spot yet again. His move to the outside likely means he will be competing with Mark Anderson for the other starting spot opposite of Julius Peppers.
The prediction would be that if Idonijae is worth his salt he'll easily slide in as the starter ahead of Anderson. This is and isn't an indictment of Anderson. Anderson did play better in 2009 than he has in the last two years since his big time rookie year of 2006. However Anderson's play is not consistent and at times can be consistently bad. Anderson is not a consistent player by any stretch and he looks like a rookie out there more than a third year pro. He way too often breaks contain by trying to take the hard inside move which leads to him being out of position. Essentially Anderson seals off the edge for the OT all on his own, which makes it easy for players to bounce it to the outside for big yards.
This gets into the strength of Brown's game, he's one of if not THE best run defender in the NFL from the DE position. Brown can string out the stretch play, hold up at the point of attack, or get great pursuit from the back side. He is not easily blocked by any TE in the league, even with his smallish size for a DE. Brown is a stalwart on the line...PERIOD and his play helps to make others around him better.
The biggest flaw with trying to shop Alex Brown is that if the Bears value Brown less than Mark Anderson, then it's not hard to fathom what type of trade offer teams are going to make for Brown. It certainly won't be a second round pick, even if you could make the argument that Brown would command a second round pick. The Bears can't even put in the request for a second round draft pick because Mark Anderson has been tendered at a second round draft pick level.
Anderson is younger, and the Bears feel more comfortable in starting him ahead of Alex Brown. This in turn means that Brown's value doesn't equate to the same level as the second round pick tendered Anderson. So already the Bears put themselves in a hole from a negotiating stance. From there it only gets worse with news that if the Bears can't trade Brown they'll just release him to save the $5-million-dollar salary he's scheduled to get this year.
With the NFL draft less than 30 days away, teams value their draft picks more now than they do at any point during the season. So why is anyone going to trade any draft pick away for Brown when they know they can simply wait it out and negotiate a cost friendly contract as a result of signing him off of waivers?
This is yet another example of Bears management having absolutely NO CLUE on how to play the trade a player game. They publicly proclaim Brown's value to them by praising Mark Anderson more than Brown, and we know the true valuet of Anderson's worth based on the restricted free agent tender of a second round pick.
The logic on all fronts doesn't make any sense at all. Brown has been one of the better and more consistent players on the defense and they have publicly stated his value to the team on the open market. This proves yet again that when it comes to the very important aspect of scouting and personnel management that Jerry Angelo and Lovie Smith fail on all fronts. You simply can't pigeon hole yourself into this type of trade proposal, and you cannot weaken the overall strength of the defense by cutting a player of Brown's caliber.
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