In his three years as GM, Ryan Poles has engineered some blockbuster trades. It started with sending Khalil Mack to the Chargers and Roquan Smith to the Ravens. He acquired Chase Claypool from the Steelers and, of course, sent the #1 pick to Carolina for D.J. Moore and several draft picks. Yet the one move that may have surprised people the most was when the Chicago Bears sent a 2nd round pick to the Washington Commanders for defensive end Montez Sweat. It went against all conventional wisdom.
Rebuilding teams don’t make aggressive moves for veteran players, especially when they haven’t shown any signs of being competitive yet. Poles bucked the trend, believing Sweat was the sort of rare talent worth being aggressive for. It worked out well almost immediately. The defensive end collected 6.5 sacks over the second half of the season, helping to transform the defense into one of the NFL’s best. While that was the primary goal for Poles, he admitted to Dan Graziano of ESPN that there was another motivation.
At the 2023 trade deadline, Chicago Bears GM Ryan Poles shipped a second-round pick to the Washington Commanders for edge rusher Montez Sweat, who was in the final year of his contract. A few days later, the Bears signed him to a four-year, $98 million extension.
They paid a premium for the 27-year-old, but Poles believes it’s important to recognize when it’s worth stretching for a player.
“Kind of knowing when to hit the gas and when to hit the brake,” Poles said. “You look at age, production. We saw the talent on tape and then looked at the age and knew that provided a runway for the player to come up in our organization. You want to do everything in a very disciplined way, but you also know you don’t have forever. These contracts start running out, and organizationally you have to show improvement if you want to convince everyone to stick with the plan.”
Chicago had gone 2-6 through the months of September and October. The offense remained inconsistent and the defense couldn’t stop anybody. People were starting to wonder if the culture could withstand further setbacks. Rather than sit back and hope things turned around, Poles was proactive. He knew the defense was the team’s best chance to get things going, so he took a swing for what they needed most: a proven pass rusher. It was a gamble, to be sure. If it flopped, he was out another high draft choice just like the misguided Claypool trade.
Thankfully, the move proved brilliant.
Sweat’s arrival galvanized the defense. The unit allowed more than 20 points in only two of the remaining nine games, and Chicago went 5-4 during that stretch. All you hear about now is the swagger and confidence the defense brings to every practice. It bleeds into the rest of the building. The offense is starting to show some bite of its own, driven by their new quarterback, Caleb Williams, and a suddenly stacked array of wide receivers. If all of this culminates in a playoff run, that trade for Sweat may go down as one of the great turning points in Bears history. Ryan Poles deserves tons of credit for it.
