Commanders News: Ron Rivera, Chase Young, Montez Sweat and Sam Howell

Montez Sweat's fresh start

It was a difficult decision to trade Montez Sweat. One the Washington Commanders weren't necessarily going to make before the Chicago Bears came swooping in with a second-round selection - currently the No. 37 overall pick - to get this deal over the line.

This was seen as steep compensation for a team going nowhere fast in 2023. However, the Bears are likely going to have two top-five selections in 2024 after trading the No. 1 pick to the Carolina Panthers next spring, and those in power also feel pretty confident that a long-term extension can be reached.

While Sweat is letting other people handle that based on comments via Chicago's website, the defensive end was delighted to be getting a fresh start - albeit on a team with a worse record than the Commanders through eight weeks.

"I'm grateful, blessed, happy to be here. I'm just happy to be here and ready to get to work. I think I'm a very strong, hard-working, tenacious player who just really wants to get better every day. I know I've still got a long way to go, but I'm happy to be the player I am. I'm sure my agents are talking about it. My agents and them are talking about something. But I'm not really in any of it right now. I'm just ready to get to work. Obviously, a player always wants to have security playing the sport that we're playing, but I mean I'm sure everything will work itself out."

- Montez Sweat via ChicagoBears.com

Sweat is going to help the Bears enormously. For the future, it gives the Commanders another potentially high-end draft selection as part of their mini-rebuild under Josh Harris' ownership group.