A looming negative hanging over the trade is that Poles pulled off another deal last year in which he traded away a second-round selection to acquire wide receiver Chase Claypool from the Pittsburgh Steelers. Claypool is now with the Miami Dolphins, having been a horrible fit for the Bears.
Poles was adamant he wouldn’t be gun shy in making another aggressive deal just because the previous one didn’t pan out.
“I try to take a lot of pride in it. You look at things that you do, if they fail or you make mistakes, can you look back at why and address those,” Poles said. “I think the key is that sometimes you become a little bit shy to make aggressive moves as you go forward. But that’s just not how we’re wired.
“So, we took a lot of those things from that situation [with Claypool] and kind of went through that process and said, ‘OK, here’s where we may have messed up this.’ And then for this one, not making the same mistake.”
One deal that didn’t happen was trading away cornerback Jaylon Johnson. Johnson received permission to seek a trade, but one never transpired. Poles is fine with that, as he underscored he wants the cornerback in Chicago and is still trying to work out an extension with the impending free agent.
“Here’s the thing. I don’t want to lose Jaylon Johnson,” Poles said. “If I were to lose Jaylon Johnson, I would like to have a high percentage of hitting on another Jaylon Johnson, which to me, is a late first and into early second [round draft pick]. Really simple there. That didn’t happen. We are still open to getting a contract done. And I’m going to follow Jaylon’s lead on how he wants to go about doing that but we’re still open. And again, Jaylon and I have talked as recently as today.”
Tuesday was a big day for Poles. He’s still hoping to work something out with Johnson and now he’s working toward securing Sweat for the long haul.
For the pass rusher, though, he’d like to get a little more acclimated before he makes any long-term decisions.
“I think all that goes into play from financial to the people around me to the players in the building, all that type of stuff like that,” Sweat said. “As I said, I just got here. I’m still trying to figure out where I’m going to lay my head at tonight.”