Chicago Bears: Ryan Poles Attempting to Build a Consistent Winner

Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles signed a handful of players after the initial wave of free agency. His signings have been void of big names but have added some toughness to the roster.

Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles certainly had a memorable first week of free agency. He refused to go down the same road his predecessor, Ryan Pace, did in signing free agents. Pace had a tendency to go for the big names even if those names didn’t fit in the system being run in Chicago. Pace tended to overspend on a lot of those big names.

Poles avoided that so far. He hasn’t really signed a big name player yet. In fact, he tried to sign one, defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi, but ended up having to cancel that due to a failed physical. Again, Poles went in a different direction than Pace when he decided to not sign Ogunjobi. Pace had a similar situation in his first year as general manager when he went ahead and signed Pernell McPhee when he failed a physical.

What Poles did do so far was add some toughness to the roster. Here is a list of the players he brought in so far:

Luke Patrick
Nicholas Morrow
Al-Quadin Muhammad
Equanimeous St. Brown
Byron Pringle
Justin Jones

Not a list of the who’s-who in the NFL, is it?

One thing all those players have in common, other than Justin Jones, is that they all were sixth-round picks or undrafted rookies. That means they play with chips on their shoulders. They want to prove all their doubters wrong. Playing on their second contract certainly proves them wrong.

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When Poles and head coach Matt Eberflus talked about the team, they mentioned that they wanted to have a tougher roster. Poles said he was disappointed in how the offensive line was soft. Eberflus wanted to have players who wanted to be there and play hard on every snap.

Muhammad, who played under Eberflus in Indianapolis for the past four seasons, gave his new teammates a warning about playing hard and fast in Eberflus’ defense.

#Bears DE Al-Quadin Muhammad on playing for Matt Eberflus: “if you’re not playing at a fast pace and you’re not running to the ball, you’re not going to play. I bought into that immediately.”

— Mark Grote (@markgrotesports) March 20, 2022

These new guys will certainly do that, on both offense and defense. They are ecstatic that they’re playing and now some of them are getting a real opportunity to show off their skills.

While Poles builds that way, the fans are left in a quandary. They see how Pace’s way didn’t work. Now Poles is doing the opposite. That’s a good thing. The problem with that is that type of rebuild will take some time to produce results. That means asking the fanbase to be more patient.

The Bears haven’t been a consistent contender in well over a decade. They had success here and there but nothing lasting more than a year. For example, they had a great 2018 season. However, they own a 22-27 record since then. They haven’t won a playoff game since the 2010 season.

After all of that, Poles and company are asking the fans for more patience. That is a lot to ask for, though.

Seeing what else Poles did will give the fans some hope. He set the team up to pick up some compensatory picks next season. Additionally, he has a boatload of salary cap space to use next season and in 2024. He has about $128 million in projected salary cap space for 2023. They’ll also have some of this year’s cap money carry over as well. In 2024, that number is $192 million. That is certainly plenty of space to make a huge impact in free agency.

That means having to endure one more season of mediocrity. Poles still has about $28 million to spend this year but he also has plenty of open roster spots to fill. We shouldn’t hold our breaths expecting something big from the Bears the rest of the offseason.

What we can expect, however, is a tougher team. That is a change from what we saw from the team in over a decade of poor play. We can even say that it’s a good first step.

What we have to accept is that Poles is running things now and he’ll do it his way. We already saw with him trading Khalil Mack and releasing popular players that he isn’t afraid to pull the trigger on difficult moves. Let’s see if he is the guy who finally rights the ship in Chicago.