Ryan Poles has made it pretty clear since taking over last year that he has little respect for the way predecessor Ryan Pace builds a roster. In the span of 14 months, everything Pace put together with the Chicago Bears has been torn down. Of the players on the roster at the end of the 2021 season, only 12 remain. Several core names like Khalil Mack, Robert Quinn, Roquan Smith, Akiem Hicks, David Montgomery, and Allen Robinson are gone. Poles has different ideas on how to build a roster.
The GM already took one subtle dig at Pace last week when he said his decision to move down from #1 overall in a trade was Carolina was partially driven by a desire to undo the damage done from trading away so many picks in previous years. That was one of the main criticisms of Pace during his tenure. Now Poles struck again, this time by expressing his overall philosophy as a GM to Jason Lieser of the Chicago Sun-Times. It stems from the understanding that putting all your faith in one pick is often a road to disaster in the NFL.
A lesson Pace never quite learned.
“You do the calculations: Is that one player gonna help us more than having the opportunity to add multiple players?” Poles told the Chicago Sun-Times. “To be good in this job, you can’t fall in love with one player. Guys like Will Anderson, when they’re out of reach, that’s always hard because you do become a fan of some of these players.
“Once you start falling in love with a player and saying this one guy is going to be a Hall of Famer — which there’s not many of them there — you fall into the trap of being narrow-minded. You should really have an open mind on how to approach the draft. There is no certainty. Just look at the statistics. So we feel comfortable with what we did.”
Ryan Poles won’t fall into the same traps Pace did.
Anybody with a good memory will understand this is an explicit criticism of the former GM. His worst habit was constantly taking big swings on specific players. Some worked out fine, like that Mack trade. Others ended up hurting the Bears far more than helping. His most egregious example of this mentality was the decision to trade up from #3 overall to #2 in 2017 for Mitch Trubisky. Not only did the choice of quarterback end up being wrong for Pace, but it also cost three extra draft picks. Two of those ended up becoming Alvin Kamara and Fred Warner.
Pace only knew one way of think. That was being aggressive. Find the players you want and go get them. It would be an acceptable strategy if you’re an excellent talent evaluator that is rarely wrong. Few, if any, general managers can make that claim. Ryan Poles demonstrates clear self-awareness. He knows his evaluations stand a good chance of being wrong. So rather than roll the dice and hope for the best, he gives himself more opportunities to find good players by stockpiling picks. Maybe if Pace had understood that lesson, he might still be running the team.
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