When Ryan Poles took over as GM in January, one thing became clear. It was unlikely the Chicago Bears’ current power structure would stay the same. Not just in the front office but in the scouting department as well. It is common for a new regime to bring in its own people. Poles already added Ian Cunningham as assistant GM. It was a fair assumption more changes were on the horizon. He merely chose to wait until after the hectic schedule of free agency and the draft had passed.
Sure enough, news has surfaced that three Bears scouts are gone 48 hours since the draft concluded. It started with national scout Chris Prescott who’d been with the team since 2016. According to Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune, the cut went much deeper. The Bears’ college scouting director, Mark Sadowski, is also out along with college scouting coordinator Bobby Macedo. This is the first true indication of how serious Poles is.
“League sources say the Bears dismissed college scouting director Mark Sadowski, a 1992 St. Rita graduate who has been with the organization since 2005, when he was hired as an area scout. Sadowski worked under GMs Jerry Angelo and Phil Emery before Ryan Pace inherited him in 2015 and promoted him to his current role the next year…
…The Bears also parted with national scout Chris Prescott and college scouting coordinator Bobby Macedo, according to sources.”
Sadowski has been a mainstay of the Bears scouting department for over a decade.
He is the one who gets the most credit for drafting Devin Hester in 2006. He also had a hand in the Greg Olsen pick a year later and was a driving force behind the Eddie Jackson and Tarik Cohen additions in 2017. So the man put some nice stamps on the organization. Having survived two previous GM firings, it felt like he’d be one of those mainstays the Chicago Bears ownership would keep around. That doesn’t seem to be the case. Poles is intent on bringing in his own people.
It is hard to blame him for that. All he knows is that the current Bears scouting department was responsible for three winning seasons since 2010. That isn’t good enough. The standard must be set higher. Poles will bring in people he believes will meet it. Sadowski may not be the last sacrifice made before the dust settles. It will be interesting to see who’s next and who might come in to plug those holes.
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