Is this hurting Roquan Smith in contract negotiations with Chicago Bears?
Roquan Smith recently requested a trade from the Chicago Bears, a somewhat surprising move. Smith has said all along that he wants to be a Bear for life, and even in his request, he said that same. However, Smith also noted that the new front office does not appear to want him as badly.
The reality is that the request is more of a way to speed up negotiations or tell the Bears that it is time to take action. This could start a little more back and forth from where they are. Still, one thing making the entire thing more complicated than a normal negotiation is that Roquan Smith does not have an agent.
Ryan Poles noted earlier in the offseason that it has made negotiations different. That also could be why the request came out like this. With an agent, there is more back and forth and smaller bits of information leaked that can speed things up.
With Roquan Smith it was a surprise that he was going to hold in and then the surprise request. This is because agents play the media game, while Smith is working on his game and his body. Poles likely did not expect Smith to take these routes, or at least do them as quickly as he did.
On the flip side, you can argue that Poles is using Smith not having an agent to his advantage as well. It appears as though Smith is a bit disappointed in the money, but has one big issue which is the “de-escalators” in the contract.
It essentially would make Smith a pay-as-you-go player, who would make money when things went well, but would make it easy for Chicago to move on if they soured. Smith wants protection through good and bad, and he leaked to the media that the top 94 non-QB contracts did not include the language that the Bears included for Smith.
Next. 4 reasons a Roquan Smith trade makes sense. dark
Perhaps Poles saw Smith without an agent and thought that he would take the deal without reading the fine print. Now, he sees that Smith is not a pushover on the negotiating table, and with Smith coming back swinging, we could see a more honest rebuttal from the Bears. Stay tuned.