Matt Eberflus isn’t around to shield Ryan Poles from public scrutiny anymore. Now, the focus of anger from fans and the media is directly on the Chicago Bears’ GM. Many are laying the blame for this season’s epic collapse at his feet. Poles hired Eberflus. He signed off on replacing Luke Getsy with Shane Waldron. He built this porous offensive line protecting Caleb Williams. For all the talk about not repeating the same mistakes made by previous GMs, Poles has fallen into the exact same traps.
That is why people aren’t excited about him leading the search for the next head coach. Why does he deserve that honor? What has he done to this point other than lose a lot of football games? We have a somewhat interesting update. For those who haven’t followed, SearSTower is a Twitter (X) handle that has delivered some accurate information about the Bears in recent weeks. It correctly stated that Eberflus would be fired after his morning conference following the Detroit game. It had some fascinating words about Poles’ status inside Halas Hall.
“However, and this is an extremely strong however which I don’t see happening, if the Bears primary HC candidate is uncomfortable working with Ryan, I expect them to fire Poles. I’m unsure how the optics of this would work is because you traditionally hire a GM first and let that GM pick their own HC. But I’ve been told that they will not hesitate firing Poles if it means being able to get the number one HC candidate on THEIR list. They would then hire a GM that aligns with their list and ordering. They will not let Ryan Poles prevent the Bears from getting the obvious first choice HC should someone clearly separate themselves from the group and does not want to work with Poles.”
Fair or not, his fingerprints are all over this disaster. The Bears are in line to have their third-worst three-year stretch in franchise history if they fail to win another game this season. Poles will own the longest (14 games) and second-longest (8+ games) losing streaks in franchise history. Throw in the fact that he just fired his hand-picked head coach midseason, and you can understand why potential candidates would be reluctant to work with him. That doesn’t even include the fact he only has one year left on his contract.
If the Bears don’t win next year, what’s to stop them from firing Ryan Poles at that point? This would immediately put the prospective coach in a situation where they’ll soon work with a GM who didn’t hire them. Nobody with common sense wants to step into that kind of quagmire. That means Poles must work hard to sell them that he is secure in his position and can build the roster they want.
This revelation does reveal one other thing, though. Kevin Warren is the man running the search. If it were actually Poles, there would be no danger of losing his job regardless of who they want. The fact he has to hope the top candidate likes him tells you all you need to know about the real power behind this.
