Ryan Pace Gives Roquan Smith His Just Due But Not His Cash

Ryan Poles really didn't want to relive the contract negotiations with linebacker Roquan Smith again.

They hadn't been fun the first time.

The Bears GM pretty much had to, though, if he was going to adequately explain why on Monday he traded Ryan Pace's lone remaining first-round Bears draft pick to Baltimore for a second-round pick and a fifth-rounder.

Smith had made it clear he thought he should get paid something in the range of $100 million for five years, like Shaq Leonard.

"We had a difference in value," Poles said. "I'm not going to go into exactly where he slots and all of that.

"But at the same time, you want players to think highly of themselves. You want them to understand that they are the best at their position. I don't fault him for that. But we had that conversation and obviously, it just didn't work out."

The Bears didn't value Smith as much as he valued his skills. 

After what Pro Football Focus called his worst game of the year, against Dallas, Smith was sent to the Baltimore Ravens for the draft picks and veteran linebacker A.J. Klein.

It saved the Bears the problem of either watching Smith leave in free agency or putting a franchise tag on him, which they obviously didn't want to do by the way Poles talked about his value. It would have meant paying him an average of the top five linebackers in the league.

Unless Baltimore doesn't give Smith a contract for 2023, the Bears GM can also be happy about the fact Smith is in the AFC and they wouldn't have to face him for another three years.

"I think that's one of those tough things," Poles said. "I don't think I've ever sat up here and said he's not a really good football player.

"But to have a long-term agreement, there has to be a common ground of what that looks like to make him a long-term player."

Then there was that other anchor dragging contract talks down to the bottom of the lagoon -- Smith didn't have an agent.

"It does make it just harder," said Poles.

The bigger issue was Smith's play being commensurate with his opinion of his skills. They revisited the talks at some point after Smith had been irritated in training camp during his hold-in and broke off talks, but they never got anything accomplished.

In this defense and playing the weakside linebacker spot, it doesn't seem Smith lived up to what they had hoped.

"Yeah, it's a combination of just the fit, but also the long-term part of it as well," Poles said. "In terms of value and everything like that. Like I said before, it's a big puzzle piece and you’re putting all these things together to make a final decision that you hope is as sound as possible."

Poles said he had wanted Smith with the team at one point.

"There's part of me that's bummed because this was a guy that I thought was going to be here for a long time," he said. "I felt like we put a lot of effort forward to get that done, and we came up short.

"We couldn't find common ground. And that's just a part of this business, which I think we all understand. I wanted to definitely wish him luck moving forward. I know he's gonna have a good career. He'll be good for Baltimore as well."

No doubt Smith feels the same way about the Bears. No doubt.

The real loser in this is the coaching staff, which must somehow try to rally a group of defenders who just got handed their lunch in Dallas, and now they're missing both Smith and pass rusher Robert Quinn—traded for a fourth-rounder to Philadelphia last week.

Finding someone to replace Smith is going to be a case of sorting through the resumes of the unknown.

"It’s not easy but I will guarantee you this, that staff, our staff, our players, our locker room, they’re competitive and they want to win, week-in and week-out," Poles said. "Do these shake-ups shake that up and make it stressful at times? Absolutely. I get that.

"But what I love about this staff is they’re competitive. This locker room is competitive and they don’t see this as these moves happened so let’s throw in the white towel and forget about everything else. They just want to grind it out and they want to win. I don’t think anyone that’s watched our games, any single one of them, even the ones we don’t win or struggle in, they don’t see the effort, the competition, the fire. Everything we stand for is out on the field and we’re going to continue to do that."

BearDigest@BearsOnMaven