Ryan Poles may have received a vote of confidence from Kevin Warren two weeks ago, but the Chicago Bears GM’s career has gone downhill since. The team got blown out of Levi Stadium but an undermanned San Francisco 49ers team who led 24-0 at one point. Then, an expose by the Chicago Tribune revealed several egregious blunders by Poles, from the poor process in hiring Matt Eberflus to his ignoring advice not to sign Nate Davis. A few days later, the team was again blown out on the road, this time in Minnesota by the Vikings. Nothing summed the night up more than a viral moment in the second half where Caleb Williams was seen languishing on the bench, clearly in pain and exhausted.
That picture couldn’t sum up Poles’ failure any better if you tried. He drafted this young man to be the savior of the franchise, all the while doing an incredibly poor job building around him. His head coach and offensive coordinator were both fired before the end of the season. His offensive line has allowed 58 sacks. It is a disaster.
Caleb Williams is living through what everybody feared.
The constant concern was that the Bears hadn’t done enough to help a young quarterback handle the transition to the NFL. Poles urged everybody to calm down. He’d built a strong receiving corps. The team revamped the offensive staff with Shane Waldron. The offensive line was returning four starters and had better depth. Everything would be fine. Clearly, the Bears GM was way too optimistic with his forecasting. Waldron was a complete fiasco, having no leadership or ability to adjust. The offensive line was beset by injuries from the beginning, and they never stopped. Caleb Williams got dropped in the path of a tornado and was told to hold his ground. Unsurprisingly, it sucked him up and spit him out instead.
I don’t know what the expectations of Williams are when an unprepared rookie, who shouldn’t be starting under any circumstance, allows every edge rush from the left side to get to him in under a second on almost every drop back. Patrick Mahomes would look bad with how that line performed last night.
@David I won’t pretend to have a strong belief about the class of draft-eligible offensive linemen, but say that CHI uses its draft resources on the best available OL prospects.
Are you 100% certain that, and that alone, gets one of the worst offenses in the league into the top tier, where the offense is actively contributing to wins? Because, if that’s the case, then the solution should be easy, right: Just pick some linemen high in the draft and book those Super Bowl tickets.
Don’t worry. We will draft a couple of 5th-7th round lineman with some really good measurements. That will fix it.
@Sam I hope you’re ready for the avalanche of downvotes that’s coming your way.
Barry, you’ve always been crazy hard on CW, and set very unrealistic expectations. BUT, your current criticisms are fair and accurate. I still have very high hopes for him and a strong belief in him… but what you’re saying about his current level of play is def on point.