OWINGS MILLS. — The Chicago Bears’ trade debacle involving the Baltimore Ravens where the Bears’ failure to get the league office on the phone in time will only yield their apologies, not any draft pick compensation.
Although NFL commissioner Roger Goodell encouraged the NFC North club to give the Ravens a draft pick to make up for the gaffe, Chicago general manager Jerry Angelo declined to do anything for Baltimore other than say he’s sorry.
"The only thing I am going to say is they have rules when you do something wrong,” Angelo told Chicago reporters. “Not when people make mistakes. A mistake was made. No rule was broken, OK, so let’s just make that clear here. As I said last night, we made the proper amends from our part and certainly there was no intent other than to do the best we could and it just didn’t work out.”
Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti was furious and called the NFL to complain.
The Bears were going to send their 29th overall pick and their fourth-round selection to the Ravens in exchange for their 26th overall pick of the first round.
However, the Bears didn’t get the phone call into the NFL to consummate the trade.
The Ravens still got their coveted player: Colorado cornerback Jimmy Smith one pick later.
Angelo said he’s not worried about whether this incident will harm his reputation, or if it will make the Ravens not want to deal with him in the future.
"There isn’t anybody in this room that hasn’t made a mistake," Angelo said. "We made an honest mistake. No more than that. There was total transparency. You make your apologies and we did and if there are consequences, you accept those consequences and then you move on. So be it. It won’t be my last.”
Angelo said that things happen sometimes. It sounds like he’s moving on.
“Believe me, I am going into my 31st year in this league,” he said. “There has been a hell of a lot worse that has been done, believe me, on the clock and there have been things out there documented so let’s not get into judging souls here. If there is something that needs to be done, I trust the league will do their due diligence and so be it.”
Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome hasn’t criticized the Bears publicly.
"I guess the best way to answer that question is that there has been some dialogue between the Ravens, the other organization and the League," Newsome said. "I’ll just have to leave it at that because where it’s going to go, we don’t know. There has been some dialogue.”
