Montez Sweat is a good football player. He plays a position -- defensive end -- where the Chicago Bears sorely lack for good football players. In a vacuum, acquiring a player like Montez Sweat would seemingly be a good thing.
In reality, acquiring Montez Sweat amounts to organizational malpractice and an all-too-early beginning of the end for the tenure of Ryan Poles as Bears general manager.
As with any acquisition, there are two considerations to make with the trade for Sweat: (i) a determination of what the Bears acquired, and (ii) the cost of doing so. Let's take each prong separately.
Sweat as an Asset
Sweat entered the NFL in 2019 as the 26th overall pick out of Mississippi State. Sweat began his career at Michigan State before being kicked off the team for using marijuana and stealing a bike; not exactly long-term red flags. After a highly productive stint in Starkville, Sweat entered the draft with elite athleticism -- securing a 9.9 Relative Athletic Score at the Combine -- and a 6'6", 260 lbs. frame to hold up in the NFL. And Sweat has done just that. While he has never wowed the NFL, Sweat has steadily produced between five and nine sacks each season of his career, even in 2021 when he missed seven games between a fractured jaw and a positive COVID test.
On the field, Sweat has been a strong, regular presence. Sweat has consistently produced above-average and sometimes elite run defense. Of course, it's 2023 and pass rushers are the ones who really get paid. Sweat hasn't blown away the league with his prowess on the end of the line, but he has proved roughly average in that aspect of the game. Add it together and you have an above-average starting defensive end. Sweat is a very good player.
The above omits four crucial considerations when discussing Sweat as an asset, so let's address them here:
- Availability. Sweat has been remarkably available during his career, only missing games for the aforementioned jaw and COVID issues.
- Age. Sweat turned 27 in September 2023.
- Situation in Washington. Sweat spent his entire tenure in Washington playing alongside blue chip defensive tackles Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne and most of his time in D.C. with fellow blue chip defensive end Chase Young on the other side of the line.
- Contract. Sweat is currently playing on his fifth-year option and is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent after the season.
The Cost
Sweat is a good starting defensive end. Unfortunately for the Bears, they paid for him to be a superstar. The pick that the Bears traded for Sweat will almost certainly be in the top-10 picks of the second round. The average pick value for a selection in the 33-42 range is 526 points.
Just how valuable is that?
When the Bears acquired Khalil Mack, they sent the Raiders #24 (740), #19 (875), #81 (185), and #196 (13) for #43 (470) and #226 (2). (Those pick values aren't discounted because, well, I think that pick discounting is absurd; while those future picks were worth less to Ryan Pace and the 2018 Bears, they were worth the exact same amount to the Bears franchise.) The Bears sent picks valued at 1,813 and received picks worth 472 for a net draft pick outlay of 1,341. That's equivalent to the #9 overall pick. In the end, that looks like a rather significant underpay for the future Hall of Famer, even before considering the whiff that those picks became for the Raiders and after considering the massive contract required to mollify Mack. When we account for pick #48 coming back to the Bears when they shipped Mack to the Chargers in 2022 (420 additional points coming back), the net outlay drops to 921 points, akin to the 18th overall pick.
Said another way: the Bears shipped out 39% as much draft value for Montez Sweat as they did for Khalil Mack (57% if you include the 2022 2nd) and will be required to give Sweat a similarly massive contract to keep him.
The Bears smartly negotiated with Mack simultaneously with agreeing to the trade compensation with the Raiders; when the trade was done, so was the extension. Not so with Sweat. As a result, Sweat has the Bears over the barrel. He has an incredible amount of leverage over the Bears, further enhanced by Chicago's baffling interactions with cornerback Jaylon Johnson to date. The Bears simply cannot afford to let Sweat and Johnson both reach the franchise tag deadline without being extended and risk losing one for nothing. Both players know this. We saw this play out with the Giants last year and the result was an outrageous four-year deal for subpar quarterback Daniel Jones that included $92 million guaranteed just so the team could slap the tag on star running back Saquon Barkley.
It boggles my mind that Poles completed the trade for Sweat without the framework of an extension in place. What in the world?
I think Sweat will end up signing with the Bears for $120 million over five years with $65 million guaranteed. This is a hair under the contract that Joey Bosa signed with the Chargers a couple of years ago.
Add up the the brutal cost of a lost top-40 player on a rookie contract plus a market rate extension and there's no sugarcoating it: the Bears paid an astronomical price to get Sweat. The fact that Sweat offers no value to the 2023 Bears makes this even more painful.
But then there's the fact that Sweat's former teammate and follow defensive end, Chase Young, was shipped out a couple of hours later for a substantially less valuable pick makes the trade even more galling. On the draft value chart, San Francisco's compensatory pick figures to be worth about 112 points versus the 526 points the Bears surrendered. Ugh. It's even more remarkable when considering that San Francisco will likely turn Young into a compensatory third-round pick in 2025 to replace the one they traded for Young.
We've heard plenty about how Poles plans to build through the draft. Unfortunately, his actions tell a different story: much like his predecessor, Poles has shown a fundamental lack of understanding value in transactions, instead locking onto his guy to ensure that he brings in his specific player, seemingly without regard to cost.
Much has been made of the new class of the NFC North in Detroit and the culture the Lions have built. To be fair, I'm a huge fan of Coach Dan Campbell and would much prefer to have his intense personality leading the Bears. But, more than anything else, the Lions have been successful in the most predictable way: they've gobbled up way more draft picks than they Bears.
The chart above includes the last four draft classes since those players would still be on their rookie deals. I included 2024 as it pertains to this discussion. Had I gone back to 2019, it would've been even uglier.
If we add up the aggregate pick point value for the Lions from the first four rounds of 2020-24, they have accumulated 14,776 points. Even though the Bears are currently slated to have both #2 and #3 overall next year, their total will be just 11,346. That 3,430 point difference is akin to the #1 overall pick plus the #47 overall pick. If we only tally 2020-23 to reflect players currently on rosters, well, shield your eyes: the Lions have 13,554 versus just 6,179 for the Bears. My God. That gap of 7,375 is equal to two #1 overall picks plus the #8 overall pick. If it feels like the Lions roster is multiple stars ahead of the Bears, that's because it is.
(The Lions admittedly have less cap space heading into 2024 than the Bears and seem likely to throw a foolish monster extension at Jared Goff, but they're so loaded that it isn't likely to slow down the train in the immediate future.)
I'm sure that I'll find a way to get excited about the 2024 Bears again at some point in the coming months. It'll be especially helpful if Poles manages to keep Sweat and Johnson while adding at least one premium defensive lineman in free agency among the following list: defensive ends Josh Allen, Brian Burns, Chase Young, Danielle Hunter, and defensive tackles Chris Jones and Christian Wilkins. Unfortunately, all four of Allen, Burns, Jones, and Wilkins will almost surely be franchise tagged if not earlier extended. That might leave only Young and Hunter as potential free agency fits.
But it's hard to be optimistic right now. The Bears have massive holes at defensive end even if Sweat gets extended, center, defensive tackle, cornerback (if Johnson leaves), safety (once Eddie Jackson gets cut), wide receiver #2, and wide receiver #3. That leaves a lot of holes to fill and doesn't address that quarterback and left tackle are arguably the two most important spots on the offense with the Bears lacking slam-dunk options. So it's possible that Poles solves the above issues by extending Sweat, extending Johnson, signing Young or Hunter, signing Tyler Biadasz or drafting one of Georgia's Sedrick Van Pran or West Virginia's Zach Frazier to play center, signing one of Antoine Winfield Jr./Kyle Dugger/Jeremy Chinn/Xavier McKinney to play alongside Jaquan Brisker at safety, and signing one of Michael Pittman Jr./Tee Higgins/Tyler Boyd to join DJ Moore at wide receiver...that's a lot.
Most importantly, Poles has lost the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his decision making.
In the end, Sweat's acquisition is a significant net negative move for the Bears franchise. It will be nearly impossible for Sweat to live up to the acquisition cost when adding the pick value and the expected contract together. Even if Sweat proves to be productive on the field, continues to avoid injury, and ages well into his early 30s, it's basically unfathomable that he could justify such a lavish outlay of resources.
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