Coby Bryant became the centerpiece of the Chicago Bears‘ free agency plan last month, signing with them for three years and $40 million. The move received universal praise. Multiple teams wanted the Super Bowl champion safety, but Bears general manager Ryan Poles won the race. It was felt that the team had gained an athletic and versatile player known for high intelligence and instincts. His vocal leadership also stood out on Seattle’s excellent defense.
There is no question he makes them a better team. Unfortunately, the bittersweet part of this union is that it probably should’ve happened four years ago. According to Dan Wiederer of The Athletic, Poles admitted in an interview that he was being hounded to draft Bryant by one of the Bears’ most experienced scouts, Jeff Shiver. The longtime scout has been with the team for 38 seasons, helping to acquire some pretty good players in that time. He wanted Bryant to be one of them. Really, really badly.
If those sentiments felt familiar to Poles, it’s because four springs earlier, as he prepared to run his first draft as Bears GM, Bryant had caught the eye of longtime scout Jeff Shiver. As a college cornerback, Bryant amassed 10 interceptions at Cincinnati and won Shiver over with his experience and ball skills, his high-level football IQ and fire.
Shiver became so drawn to Bryant’s skill set and makeup that he had been, by Poles’ description, “on the table doing jumping jacks for (Bryant)” during the Bears’ pre-draft meetings in 2022.
“Jeff’s kind of that old-school scout,” Poles said. “When you’re in meetings with him, there is no middle ground; he grades extremely high or extremely low. For Coby, he was convinced the ceiling was going to be really high.”
The Coby Bryant missed opportunity taught Poles a big lesson.
Remember, he was the youngest general manager in the NFL at that time. It can be really easy to think you have all the answers. After all, he’d just won a Super Bowl with the Chiefs a couple of years before that. He had what he felt like was the blueprint to success. Having Ian Cunningham as his right-hand man certainly helped. However, most rookie GMs often fail to realize that there are several scouts in certain organizations who may be more experienced than they are and have a trained eye for spotting good players. Shiver was a major example. He has a pretty strong track record for finding gems.
| Player Name | Position | Draft Year | Key Shiver Insight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brad Muster | FB/RB | 1988 | One of Shiver’s earliest notable evaluations shortly after joining the team. |
| Rosevelt Colvin | LB | 1999 | A core defensive anchor identified early in Shiver’s career. |
| Mike Brown | S | 2000 | Credited as a primary Shiver “find” and a foundational defensive piece. |
| Anthony Thomas | RB | 2001 | Heavily evaluated by Shiver prior to winning NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year. |
| Kyle Orton | QB | 2005 | Shiver was a vocal advocate for his physical and mental toughness. |
| David Montgomery | RB | 2019 | A more recent standout from Shiver’s primary Midwest scouting region. |
| Tory Taylor | P | 2024 | Shiver was a key member of the leadership group that made the official draft call. |
Pretty much any notable player the Bears have drafted from the Midwest regions over the past 38 years probably had his fingerprints on it to some extent. That includes Jim Flanigan, Jordan Howard, Cody Whitehair, and Colston Loveland. It would be amazing to see his scouting reports on other such guys the Bears passed on over the years, to see if his wisdom was erroneously ignored.
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It will be interesting to see if his influence is felt this year.
They hit big on a Midwest prospect last year with Colston. Could they go back to that well again with the 25th pick in the draft? There could be some fascinating options to choose from, like Toledo safety Emmanuel McNeil-Warren, Ohio State defensive tackle Kayden McDonald, Indiana wide receiver Omar Cooper Jr., and Illinois defensive end Gabe Jacas. Maybe Shiver will give one of them the jumping-jacks-on-the-table treatment like Coby Bryant. Even at his advanced age, the man hasn’t lost his passion for the job.
That is probably part of why the organization has kept him around for so long. It sounds like Poles learned his lesson and started trusting Shiver more often after that. Bryant is finally a member of the team. If he keeps up the level of play he showed in Seattle over the next few years, nobody will worry about what happened in that draft. Still, one has to imagine Shiver ribs the young GM about it from time to time, especially after the big plays Bryant made last season to win a championship.
