One of the most confusing and concerning issues facing the Chicago Bears going into this off-season was the contract status of GM Ryan Poles. Initially, reports said he’d signed a four-year contract in 2022. That meant 2025 would be his last season, making him a lame-duck GM right when the Bears were set to hire a new head coach. Not only that, but it sounded as if the team wasn’t keen on extending him despite letting him lead the search. It felt like an egregious miscalculation.
Later updates indicated Poles was actually signed through 2026, giving him a little more cushion. Some wondered if the Bears planned to let him and the next head coach feel each other out for two years. If it worked out, they’d address the issue then. If not, they could find a new GM the coach prefers. As it turns out, there will be no such experiment. According to Courtney Cronin of ESPN, expectations are that Poles will receive a three-year extension in the near future to bring himself into alignment with head coach Ben Johnson.
The Bears do not publicly comment about the contracts of coaches and front office personnel, nor would Poles address whether he has assurances of receiving a contract extension when asked on Jan. 7. According to a team source with knowledge of the situation, Poles’ deal runs through the 2026 season, and the expectation is he will receive an extension to align him with Johnson, who signed a five-year contract with Chicago, a term that is common for first-time head coaches.
What’s less common for first-time head coaches are substantial salaries. He’s believed to be making $13 million per year, whereas Eberflus made $6 million. As one source put it, the Bears “didn’t cut corners” when it came to paying Johnson.
Ryan Poles got the same treatment as Ryan Pace.
In 2018, the team extended the former GM right before he conducted his search for the next head coach, who eventually became Matt Nagy. Their partnership produced a division title and another playoff berth in 2020. Unfortunately, their inability to fix the quarterback position proved their undoing. Ryan Poles may have avoided that pitfall by selecting Caleb Williams in the 2024 draft. That means he is free to build up the rest of the roster without sacrificing extra resources to fix the most important position. If he and Johnson can produce some good off-seasons over the next two years, this team may emerge as a contender in the near future. At least there won’t have to be any further conversations about it.
Ben runs circles around the GM. Kevin you got a winner in Ben.
Quite the group on here that will be so disappointed when the Bears start winning. They just expect the same failures of the past when things have obviously changed from the top down. They love blaming Poles while his right hand man, Cunningham gets a free pass? Cunningham is as much to blame as Poles. They make decisions together with scouts and coaches. Blame one…blame all.
I never let on with anything I follow, but generally, we all have historical bosses. People don’t remember that the Lions had decades of poor play, constantly drafting wide receivers to follow Megatron, but no one to coach them to have a more DIVERSE skillset. Squeezing different skillets from different players on the same team, takes coaching and intelligence from both a coach and player. Tom Brady MADE the short field receivers with Wes Welker, Julian Edelman, Rob Gronkowski. Brees MADE Jimmy Graham, the same guy the Bears wasted free agent money on. If a team doesn’t have a certain… Read more »
@Tred
I agree with impatience. I’m an extremely impatient person myself, but at this time of the year, it’s difficult for anyone to “show improvement.”
Last year, I was amazed at how Justin Fields got worse and Caleb Williams got better although one was expecting to be traded and the other was waiting for the draft.
Neither of them got better or worse, just out impatience squeezing blood from gravel.
Ben Johnson HAS made players better. And he HAS designed schemes and called plays that has taken advantage of what players can do, and do well. Eberflus did that with the Colts defense but nothing else, and certainly, the coaches Eberflus installed made everyone worse. Judging Ryan Poles based on his drafting players who were never coached, never put into position to succeed, is only Poles’ fault, in his reluctance to fire coaches (or lean on Eberflus to fire them). Is it fair to judge Poles on the first year, stripped down roster? The won-lost record, no, but the lack… Read more »