While most football people would expect head coach Matt Eberflus and general manager Ryan Poles to be on the hot seat, the Chicago Bears’ ridiculous culture will allow them to continue for a few more miserable seasons.
When the offseason began, many people felt this would be an impactful offseason for the Chicago Bears. Well, that is true. The question, however, is if the impact is good or bad. General manager Ryan Poles has made some moves, but many were head-scratchers.
After two seasons and just 10 wins, many would expect the Chicago Bears to have a winning season, or Poles and head coach Matt Eberflus could be out the door. Normally, that would be a concern. However, we are talking about the Chicago Bears.
The Bears are more concerned with bringing nostalgia than building a winning team. Nearly 40 years have passed since the 1985 squad dominated and won the Super Bowl. Since then, they’ve returned just one, in 2010, and lost.
When Poles took the job he boasted that the Chicago Bears would take the NFC North and not give it back. Since then, they won two division games in 12 tries, none against their hated rivals, the Green Bay Packers.
Not beating the Packers is very big. Even Poles’ predecessor, Ryan Pace, had two victories over Green Bay.
Poles is reverting to committing previous GMs’ mistakes
Poles seemed to be a different type of general manager when he started to make his moves. He tore down the roster and added backups from other teams to start in Chicago. That was a good move. He rid the team of large contracts and, in the end, it worked. In Year 2 of his rebuild, he had over $100 million in salary cap space.
While that move was good and afforded Poles an opportunity to acquire better talent, he has repeated some of the same mistakes other general managers made.
For example, take a look at the offensive line. Time and again the unit has been a headache for whoever was the quarterback. The line gave up 108 sacks in two seasons and numerous times the quarterback was pressured.
Instead of investing in the line, Poles is doing the same thing that Pace did before him — depend on late-round picks to do an average job. In 2022, he drafted four offensive linemen. However, none of them before the fifth round.
Braxton Jones was the fifth-round pick in 2022. He is a starter and had a good rookie campaign. However, he is nowhere near an elite player. He is an adequate player. Out of the rest, only Ja’Tyre Carter, who has gone back and forth between the practice squad and the roster, is still on the team.
In free agency, Poles has invested money in lesser-known linemen. This offseason, he signed Jake Curhan and Coleman Shelton. He also traded a fifth-round pick for Ryan Bates. None of these players have made an impact during their careers. Bates was a starting center who lost his job and did not start a game in 2023.
Yes, Poles did draft Darnell Wright with the 10th pick in last year’s draft. However, the pick was between Wright and Jalen Carter. With Carter’s controversies, Poles was not going after Carter. That made the choice easier.
Let’s also take a look at the Keenan Allen trade. Poles gave up a fourth-round pick for Allen. Allen has had a great career. He has had at least 1,100 receiving yards in five of the past seven seasons. However, he is 32 and has a $23.1 million cap hit.
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Allen is not the profile of what Poles usually goes after. He likes to go after young players in their prime. He traded for D.J. Moore in 2023. While Moore had a big cap hit, he was just 26 years old. He also had three years left on his contract.
Allen is in the final year of his contract. Additionally, the Los Angeles Chargers were on the verge of cutting him. They wanted him to restructure his contract to free up some cap money. He refused so if Poles did not come along they would have cut him (or traded him for even less).
With only four picks, trading that pick was big. Now it appears the Bears would have to trade the ninth pick in this year’s draft. Doing so likely takes them out on one of the three elite wide receivers. Sure, the draft is deep and he could still pick up a good receiver later. However, why do the Chicago Bears always have to take lesser talent and let the bigger talent go elsewhere?
Acquiring Allen would make the fans happy and distract them from the fact that the Bears would miss out on huge, young talents. It is similar to Pace acquiring Khalil Mack. It was a huge splash but it was done to distract from the fact that the rest of the team was not good.
While the Bears made the playoffs in Mack’s first season in 2018, that team did it on the back of the defense. That unit was one of the best of the decade. The offense was, at best, middling.
After 2018, opponents just double-teamed Mack constantly and he struggled to continue to shine. He also dealt with injuries as a result. After he got traded to the Chargers, he once again dominated. In 2023, he had 17 sacks.
Eberflus has not been good
When the Chicago Bears hired Eberflus it was a surprise. Many felt that a more offensive-minded head coach could help develop Justin Fields. Eberflus was the Indianapolis Colts’ defensive coordinator before coming to Chicago.
Eberflus ended up doing nothing to help Fields. He hired Luke Getsy to be the offensive coordinator. However, Getsy wanted to change Fields instead of using his talents. It became a nightmare and now both Fields and Getsy are out of Chicago.
Eberflus has looked lost at times on the sideline. His game plan has been questioned. In 2023, he oversaw the defense after defensive coordinator Alan Williams had to resign due to a human resource problem (another reason for Eberflus’ problem is that he had two coaches on his staff who had to resign due to off-the-field troubles).
Under Eberflus in 2023, the Bears had three late-game collapses that turned sure victories into losses. The plays called at the end of those games were questionable. Even with his defense, he had some of his best players on the bench as the opponents were on game-winning drives.
It is important to note that if the Bears finished those three games, they would have made the playoffs with 10 wins.
Many expected Eberflus to be fired along with Getsy. However, Poles retained him and Getsy was the scapegoat (along with Fields).
Despite struggles, Poles and Eberflus are in good shape
As mentioned earlier, you’d expect Poles and Eberflus to be on the hot seat. However, with the Chicago Bears, they may be okay. Picking up a rookie quarterback may buy them time. They could argue that you cannot expect a rookie to lead the team to the playoffs. What C.J. Stroud did for the Houston Texans in 2023 could be seen as the exception, not the rule.
They should be on the hot seat, though. With all the losses and all the controversies surrounding the team, things are not well at Halas Hall. Team chairman George McCaskey has no football sense and it takes a lot before he takes action.
We’ve seen how Matt Nagy continued to lead the team despite his struggles. Despite just one winning season, Pace was allowed to be the general manager for seven years. Phil Emory had three years and Marc Trestman only two only because of the size of the mess they made in a short period.
Poles stated that Year 3 would be the critical season. He expected the team to take a big leap in production. The way things are going, he doesn’t have to feel any pressure if it doesn’t happen this year. As long as the McCaskeys can remind people of the 1985 Bears and bring out some shiny objects to distract people, they will be fine.