Dazed and Confused

The Chicago news broadcasts yesterday came this close to treating the Bears’ signing three free agents as breaking news. Thank you, NFL juggernaut. As far as I could tell, nobody in local media knows the difference between baseball and football free agency. Here’s a hint—there’s a lot more talent available in one than the other. Football may reign supreme, but, in comparison to the national pastime it’s replaced, the best free agents are in baseball. Maybe it’s because of football’s hard salary cap. The Bears signed two defensive linemen and one center. What that means is their old teams didn’t want them, didn’t see their value vs. other, most likely, younger players. In baseball, it’s not so much that teams don’t want to sign their players to extensions, but they can’t afford to. This is apples to oranges, but here goes—the Bears didn’t sign anyone close to Juan Soto or Alex Bregman, even, in terms of talent. Yes, an NFL team can strike it rich in free agency, like the Eagles did with Saquon Barkley last season. Far more likely, though, talent is acquired through trades, usually in the form of draft pick(s) in exchange for player(s). Ex-Bears’ GM Ryan Pace did that all the time. Yes, he got burned giving away valuable draft capital for players he overvalued. Regardless, that’s how talent gets moved the majority of times in the NFL. So, pardon me if I’m not jumping onto the Bears’ bandwagon just yet. Super Bowl LX? No, more likely, bust.