Nobody can say for sure what fate awaits Ryan Poles. The Chicago Bears GM seemed safe after team president Kevin Warren said so in November. However, some notable local insiders believe circumstances have changed enough to where that is no longer set in stone. One thing is clear. A big piece of news is less than a week away. Either it will be Poles getting a contract extension, or it will be him getting fired. The Bears won’t let him linger into the final year of his contract without a resolution.
Presuming Poles does survive, he faces probably the most important off-season of his career. Not only must he hire a new head coach, but he must also infuse the roster with enough talent to finally challenge a stacked NFC North. The second part will involve making good use of Chicago’s three picks in the first two rounds of the draft. To that end, a source informed SM that Poles is relaying a new directive to his scouts and front office. He wants them to focus on players who are “immediately able to contribute.”
Project players or those with limited experience aren’t a priority moving forward. Poles wants guys who can play immediately.
A common trend among general managers with a scouting background is that they often focus on a player’s physical traits in the draft. They want the biggest, strongest, fastest, and most athletic guys. That isn’t a bad thing. The problem is that many of those types often come from situations where they didn’t get the coaching or playing time needed to fully realize their potential. Such a strategy puts more pressure on the team’s coaching staff to ensure they get the development required. This is a big problem if those coaches might not be the most capable.
Matt Eberflus and his coordinators proved as much.
It appears Ryan Poles has no intention of falling into that same trap again. It has burned him far too many times with names like Velus Jones, Dominique Robinson, Zacch Pickens, and Kiran Amegadjie. Honestly, this approach didn’t start with him. Ryan Pace was also guilty of it, with Kevin White, Mitch Trubisky, and Adam Shaheen being clear works-in-progress. Ironically, he also seemed to shift towards a more proven commodity approach from 2018 onward. Coincidentally, that is when he landed guys like Roquan Smith, David Montgomery, Cole Kmet, and Jaylon Johnson. Go figure.
