Trading for Jonah Jackson wasn’t a huge surprise. Once it became clear the Los Angeles Rams were interested in moving the former Pro Bowler, everybody pinpointed the Chicago Bears as a landing spot. He had direct ties to new head coach Ben Johnson and would be relatively cheap to acquire. By far, the bigger splash came a day later when GM Ryan Poles flipped a 4th round pick in 2026 to the Kansas City Chiefs for veteran All-Pro guard Joe Thuney. Nobody saw it coming, though, in hindsight, they should’ve.
How did it happen? Insider Matt Lombardo provided details in his recent column. It turns out this was something Poles had been working on for weeks. It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing. He and his front office believed the Chiefs wanted to keep fellow guard Trey Smith but knew it would cost top money. After already making Creed Humphrey the highest-paid center in the league, they didn’t have the cap space to keep Thuney, too, especially with an extension coming his way. Poles exploited his relationship with the organization to work out a deal.
Poles, I’m told, prioritized adding Thuney in recent weeks and didn’t waste any time trying to pull off a trade.
“Teams realized that Kansas City had the highest paid center and right guard in the league with no offensive tackles, and started inquiring,” a league source with knowledge of the trade discussions tells me, on the condition of anonymity to speak freely. “I have to think that Brett Veach and Ryan Poles’ relationship helped a ton.”
Ryan Poles deserves tons of credit for his work.
Over the past couple of weeks, it became clear that the guard market in free agency would be bad. The caliber of talent available wouldn’t match the money it would require to sign them. That wasn’t a pool the Bears GM wanted to dive head-first into. So he got to work figuring out alternatives. While it cost the team two draft picks, he landed two proven commodities at reasonable rates. Jackson and Thuney are both good players. If they stay healthy this year, the Bears offensive line will take a massive step forward.
The crazy part is Ryan Poles isn’t done. Rumors are fast and furious that he has more moves lined up. Everybody expects the Bears to go hard on the center market when the tampering period opens. Drew Dalman is the name to watch there. If that weren’t enough, whispers are growing louder that Poles could be looking to add a top left tackle prospect in the 1st round of the draft. This could become one of the wildest single-season turnarounds for a position group in franchise history.
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I hear we signed Dalman. 3/$42M
Told ya Mack wasn’t coming. Move on…..
FA contracts are generally not complete u til the team physical is done.
(Also, I hope that everybody realizes that Poles is almost certainly the “person familiar” quoted in the article that’s slobbing the proverbial knob of his own deal. That’s how that particular type of sausage gets made.)
I saw an article earlier today with the hed, “Bears, get ready to lose.” But fortunately, it was something that some tech dudebro douche canoe wrote about Tesla stock.
I like the Thuney deal.