The Chicago Bears traded Jordan Howard to the Philadelphia Eagles in the biggest trade everyone saw coming.
No one was quite sure when the deal would go down or what the compensation would be, but the Bears were shopping their former fifth-round pick and the Eagles were in the market for a running back.
In the end, Ryan Pace received a conditional 2020 draft pick, and fans in Chicago are left feeling a bit disappointed about the move.
The trade feels forced for a few different reasons.
Eagles run same offense as Bears
The perceived reason why the Bears wanted to trade Jordan Howard was because he wasn’t the right fit in Matt Nagy’s offense.
Yet, Nagy comes from the same Andy Reid system as Philadelphia Eagles head coach Doug Pederson, who all coached together in Kansas City.
So why do the Eagles want to add Howard into their offense while Nagy seems to not want him in his version of the same offense?
Perhaps there is more to Howard’s situation in Chicago than we know on the outside, but clearly Pederson thinks he can find a good fit for Howard in this system while Nagy decided not to.
Bears trade Howard at his lowest value
Jordan Howard’s trade value is at its all-time low.
He’s coming off of the least productive season of his career, when his contract has its least value.
Howard is in the last year of his rookie deal, which elevated his pay to just over $2 million, and any team trading for him knew he would just be a one-year rental.
Plus, every team has no shortage of running back options available in free agency, so they have less incentive to make a trade.
It was one of the NFL’s worst-kept secrets that the Bears were looking to trade their top running back, so Ryan Pace had very little leverage in negotiations.
It culminated with a return of just a conditional 2020 draft pick that will be in the fifth-round at best.
Howard’s skill set was never going to command an early draft pick on the market, but the timing of the trade seemed to have the running back’s value at its lowest.
Bears haven’t secured long-term replacement
The trade became a foregone conclusion once the Bears signed Mike Davis, but most fans and analysts were expecting the deal to come closer to the NFL Draft.
Trading Howard leaves just Davis and Tarik Cohen as the established veterans on the roster, and neither one has proven they can shoulder a significant load of carries.
Ryan Pace is expected to add a running back in the upcoming draft, but there’s no guarantee the right player will be on the board when the Bears are on the clock.
Clearly, Matt Nagy is comfortable with the running backs he has on the roster, but the backfield went from one of the deepest positions on the roster to one with some real question marks.
Bears failed Jordan Howard, not the other way around
It’s the job of the head coach to put his players in the best position to be successful, and Matt Nagy didn’t always do that with Jordan Howard.
Early in the season, Howard was a square peg in a round hole, and the Bears running game struggled.
Eventually, Nagy switched his play-calling to better fit what his running back was comfortable with, and their ground game found new life late in the season.
Howard also wasn’t given many opportunities to contribute as a receiver, most often catching the ball at or behind the line of scrimmage.
He improved his hands and stayed the course as a smart, physical runner, and it wasn’t all his fault that his production decreased in 2018.
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