GM Ryan Poles hates how people are using Bears history to be pessimistic about Caleb Williams.
If you’ve read the not-so-subtle tea leaves, Caleb Williams will presumably become the next starting quarterback of the Chicago Bears when they draft him at No. 1 overall this coming late April.
But even while he’s already started chumming it up with his new potential receiver, Keenan Allen, it’s hard for some to shake the Bears’ unfortunate history with quarterbacks. The Bears have not had a legitimate franchise quarterback in nearly four decades, and Williams would officially be their 40th starter at the position in the last approximately 30 years. When it comes to the Bears successfully developing the most important position in football, something must be in the water. It’s a vicious cycle.
Bears general manager Ryan Poles rejects this sentiment. Heartily. (As he should!)
In an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, the GM was asked about his thoughts regarding any pessimism about how the Bears will support Williams — especially Robert Griffin III’s recent assertion that Williams should pull an “Eli Manning” instead of going to Chicago. Given their unsavory history with quarterbacks, it’s an entirely reasonable thought process, if still a little hyperbolic.
And Poles had none of it.
“I was hired to break the cycle.” PHEW.
Honestly, this is about as good of an answer as you’ll get on the subject. Poles understands why some people might not be bought in the idea that Williams will finally be that mythical star quarterback the Bears haven’t had since the mid-20th century. But at the same time, none of what the Bears have done in the past — even with Justin Fields — has any bearing on whether Williams will reach his potential. Those were different executives with different coaches and different plans. Sometimes these failures just snowball in one place. They’re all in the past.
Perhaps more importantly, it’s understandably hard to separate Poles from Fields from afar, but Poles didn’t draft the now Pittsburgh Steeler.
From the moment ex-GM Ryan Pace and ex-coach Matt Nagy were fired, Fields was always going to face an uphill battle with his Chicago career. First-time GMs do not like putting all their eggs in the basket on unproven players they didn’t scout or draft themselves. This isn’t to say that Poles didn’t have any missteps building around Fields over the last two years. But even that’s a misnomer because it’s tough to say that Chicago’s cautious approach to free agency while not making any long-term commitments amounted to earnestly building around Fields. They dipped their toes in the water on him, but they never jumped all the way into the pool.
So when Poles says he’s trying to break the Bears’ miserable cycle of quarterbacks past, I think he deserves some benefit of the doubt. Williams will likely be the quarterback he hitches his wagon to, the young man he hand-picks for his grand plan. And he’s set him up quite well with a supporting cast that is usually unbecoming of a No. 1 overall selection (thank you, Carolina Panthers). That is a far cry from the bumbling Bears of the past, who have almost always told their young quarterbacks to sink or swim without mercy.
If that doesn’t tell you Poles means business, then I don’t know what will.
