Ryan Poles is not having the best summer. People were already skeptical of the decision to extend him despite not earning it. Then the Chicago Bears stumbled out of the gate, losing their first two games of the season. One came from coughing up a 17-6 lead. The other was a 52-21 humiliation. Calls for Poles’ head have intensified a hundredfold in the past week. Word is the GM is feeling the heat in a big way, even knowing he just signed the extension. Worse still, stories that don’t paint him in the best light have begun leaking out of Halas Hall.
Poles is said to be highly conscious of his media perception. He’s had firm control of the team’s public messaging for years. It seems others in the building have finally decided to correct some of the misconceptions. One of the biggest is this idea that he is any good at scouting. Tyler Dunne of Go Long released a new story on Poles this past week. In it, multiple Bears scouts revealed how little respect they have for the GM, particularly regarding his supposed area of expertise.
The offensive line.
One scout brought up the fact that Poles — a former Boston College guard himself — takes immense pride in his ability to scout offensive linemen, yet displays no such magic powers. Where Poles sees diamonds in the rough, others wonder what tape he’s watching. All the way back to 2022, his first draft, he fell for a small lineman out of Illinois named Doug Kramer. Other scouts on staff saw a UDFA — a player who’d look like a walk-on amongst scholarship players in the SEC — and the GM went against the grain to make Kramer a sixth-round pick. “Nothing against Doug Kramer,” one scout said. “He was a good player in his own right, but that’s not an NFL player.”
That draft, Poles also selected San Diego State’s Zachary Thomas in the sixth. The tape was rough. Thomas failed to generate a surge in the run game, stay on blocks and — above all — he lacked an anchor. That didn’t bother Poles. In draft meetings, he said multiple times that Thomas “knows how to lose.” A theory that would’ve made sense if the lineman was in position and dying slowly against a bull like Nick Bosa or Aidan Hutchinson. GMs can live with a lineman who’ll stay in position and give a quarterback an extra split-second to throw. It’s possible to give up ground without losing the block. Thomas, however, lost consistently. “Losing on his edges, losing around the horn, losing through his chest,” this scout said. “And Poles kept falling in love with saying, ‘He knows how to lose.’ Well, yeah, he’s losing every single rep.”
Ryan Poles has his priorities in all the wrong places.
It feels like he falls too much in love with a player’s story rather than their actual capability. Doug Kramer was a tough, gritty overachiever at Illinois, but it was so obvious he’d be cannon fodder against NFL size and seed. The same was true of Zach Taylor. Since 2022, Ryan Poles has drafted eight offensive linemen. Only two of those are starting. One is 1st round pick Darnell Wright, and the other is Braxton Jones, who has allowed 13 pressures in two games. Ozzy Trapilo, a 2nd round pick, and Kiran Amegadjie, a 3rd round pick, were both healthy scratches in Detroit.
Chicago had to trade for two guards and sign a top free agent to cover up Poles’ missteps. That is not how you should be building your trenches, and it’s just as bad on the defensive side. Only one player the Bears have drafted is starting, Gervon Dexter. Everybody else was acquired via trade or free agency. One can imagine that those scouts are relieved that head coach Ben Johnson holds the roster power now.
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