Think about being a Chicago Bears fan — I do know empathy is tough, however simply attempt — and going by way of what they did Thursday solely to open ESPN on Friday and see a bunch of misguided, braindead analysts speaking about buying and selling Justin Fields. Over his previous two begins, the Chicago QB is 43-for-64 for 627 yards with 8 TDs to 1 INT, displaying the form of playmaking Bears devoted prayed was attainable, and the perfect we (sports activities media) can do is Discuss shifting him?

In 2023, there isn’t any greater crutch on this business aside from Commerce discuss, and I’m together with slideshows. Nonetheless, in the event you can combine commerce discuss with a slideshow, it’s the holy grail of senseless engagement, and basically the identical system social media makes use of.

Scroll, SCROLL, SCCRRROOOOLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!! Serious about leaving? Right here’s one other speaking head providing up a unique commerce situation about one other participant who performs nicely… from a readership standpoint. It doesn’t even matter if the athlete is definitely good. So long as folks proceed to click on on articles about Ben Simmons, “journalists” will proceed to supply them.

“Nicely, there’s been discuss buying and selling Fields earlier than, so bringing it up once more is justified.”

Let me cease you there, and go away. The morons that thought buying and selling a QB who ran for greater than 1,100 yards final season — on accident — was a sound draft technique had been simply as idiotic then as they’re now.

There isn’t a conscionable purpose to commerce a quarterback who does that in his second season, on an actively tanking franchise, regardless of how lengthy the dropping streak is. Lamar Jackson has topped 1,000 yards dashing in a season twice in his profession, however Baltimore wanted to construct a system tailor-made to his ability set so as to take action, they usually simply occurred to have a reliable teaching workers in place to win within the course of.

Fields has Lester Diamond pacing the sidelines, and no artistic offensive thoughts inside 600 miles of Halas Corridor, however, yeah, promote excessive on him. F*ck it. Promote excessive on everybody. Simply commerce all of them. Joel Embiid, Mike Trout, Saquon Barkley, every of these athletes will development on Google in the event you put “5 attainable commerce locations for” in a headline punctuated by their title, so why not?

There’s just one method to enhance a roster, proper? Teaching, participant improvement, free company, and the draft all require time, endurance, and religion* — three issues severely missing not solely in sports activities in 2023, however in society writ massive. (*Not a god factor per se. Merely the idea that there’s a purpose for the method.)

Zach Wilson is a putrid, steaming, gross excuse for a quarterback one week, with Jets superfan Mike Greenberg screaming to commerce for Kirk Cousins earlier than dismal QB play erodes locker room morale any additional, and the subsequent outing the younger Jets signal-caller virtually beats the defending champs.

Severely, what the hell are we doing? If all dialogue inevitably ends with “Commerce him!” why even entertain one other angle?

“Aaron Choose hit three house runs in the present day. Ought to the Yankees promote excessive and get off that contract now? I imply it’s an albatross, New York missed the playoffs, Aaron Boone can’t handle, and their finest pitcher is within the drunk tank.”

“100 p.c agree, Mike. The one plan of action Hal Steinbrenner has is to commerce Choose, promote the staff to Saudi Arabia, and see if Kylian Mbappe can play shortstop.”

For a very long time, it was stated that “keep in mind when” was the bottom type of dialog people might have interaction in, and Tony Soprano was proper — for a time. Little did David Chase know that the species would devolve additional since 2007, as a result of commerce discuss within the new No. 1.

If the numerous phrases wasted on “Damian Lillard to the Warmth” tales aren’t sufficient to persuade you that there isn’t any larger time suck, no topic extra hole, no dialog much less attention-grabbing than commerce discuss, you want critical assist.