Team president Kevin Warren made it clear at his press conference last week that the Chicago Bears planned to retain GM Ryan Poles moving forward. This wasn’t a huge surprise. Teams tend to give general managers two cracks at getting the head coach right, as was true of Jim Finks and again of Ryan Pace. However, after yet again watching this team look completely disinterested and outmatched for most of Sunday, it might be time to have that conversation about whether Poles truly deserves to keep his job.
Let’s start with the obvious concerns. This man played a central role in hiring this coaching staff. Since taking over, Poles has watched three coordinators and the head coach get fired or resign. That reality falls at his feet. He is supposedly the head of the football operations. Still, this is something we already knew. The bigger issue we must discuss is the roster itself.
This league is driven by star power. Quite frankly, the Bears don’t have enough of it. Think of it like this. Who are the five best players on the team right now?
There is a big problem with that list. Only one of the names was drafted by Poles. One was inherited from the previous regime, two were trade acquisitions, and the last was a free agent signing. For somebody who said from the outset he intended to build through the draft, he hasn’t exactly been able to find cornerstones there outside of Williams and maybe Rome Odunze and Darnell Wright.
It’s important to say his work hasn’t been a total disaster. He has found several solid players, such as Kyler Gordon, Braxton Jones, Gervon Dexter, and Roschon Johnson. However, none of them are anywhere close to what you would call a Pro Bowl level. It usually doesn’t take long to know if a GM has a keen eye for star power. Finks drafted Walter Payton with his first pick and Dan Hampton a few years later. Jerry Angelo found Charles Tillman and Lance Briggs in his second draft. Nobody of that caliber has emerged for the Bears since Poles took over. At least not yet.
That is before you get into his big misfires like Chase Claypool and Nate Davis.
The reality is Ryan Poles is starting to drift into Rod Graves territory. The former de facto GM in the mid-1990s ended up with a reputation for picking a number of good players (Curtis Conway, Jim Flanigan, and Walt Harris) but never found any great ones. Poles’ best hope is selling the team that Williams and Odunze are the cornerstones they’ve been waiting for. All this team needs is one more big push to get over the hump.
In truth, the Bears may have to accept that Poles is the worst kind of GM: okay, but not good enough. Those guys tend to keep their jobs way longer than they should. Despite what Warren said, they need to seriously discuss wiping the entire slate clean next month.
