GM Ryan Poles has stayed busy following the draft by engineering some changes to the Chicago Bears’ scouting department. It was expected. This is something that happens almost every time there’s a regime change. Thus far, he has added Ian Cunningham as assistant GM, Terry Koziol as co-director of player personnel, Ryan Weese as a scouting assistant, and Tom Bradway as the northeast area scout. One underlying theme thus far is how young several of the additions are. Now it appears Poles wanted to inject some veteran experience into the mix. That comes in the form of a new Midwest area scout, Ryan Cavanaugh.
The man has done this sort of work for 20 years now. He started under Bill Polian with the Indianapolis Colts, rising to become one of their area scouts in the late 2000s. That might explain his arrival in Chicago, considering Polian helped hire Poles. After departing in 2009, he quickly landed with the Houston Texans as their midwest scout. Based on how the team faired in that region since then, it’s safe to say he did his job pretty well.
- 2010 – Sherrick McManis (Northwestern)
- 2011 – J.J. Watt (Wisconsin)
- 2012 – Whitney Mercilus (Illinois)
- 2016 – Will Fuller and Nick Martin (Notre Dame)
- 2019 – Max Scharping (Northern Illinois)
- 2021 – Nico Collins (Michigan)
Ryan Cavanaugh can be a massive help to the Bears.
While they’ve done fine adding players from the midwest region over the years, they haven’t scored a genuine stud in a long time. David Montgomery, Cody Whitehair, and Jordan Howard are good players. Yet the last genuinely great one they nabbed was back in 2000 when they got Mike Brown out of Nebraska in the 2nd round. This is a region that the Bears should frankly be dominating. They’re the largest city in the midwest. One would think they’d make it a personal mission to own it.
Cavanaugh gives them an opportunity to improve moving forward. Getting a chance to work under GMs like Polian and Rick Smith proves he’s learned under some of the best. Credit to Poles for scoring a nice addition for the scouting department.
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