It was evident even in 2023 that Ben Johnson was interested in the Chicago Bears head coaching job. This stemmed from his growing love of the city after attending several Cubs games with his family, along with the chance to work with future #1 overall pick Caleb Williams. However, the Bears opted to give Matt Eberflus another year. That proved to be a mistake. Going into this off-season, Johnson still had an interest in the job. There was a problem, though. He wasn’t sure about GM Ryan Poles.
The buzzword coming out of the coach’s camp was seeking “alignment” with the general manager. Most took that as he’d prefer to work with his own guy. That meant the Bears would have to fire Poles to make a deal happen. Johnson’s agent, Rick Smith, revealed this wasn’t the case. He explained to Bill Zimmerman on the Bears Banter podcast that alignment was about vision. Johnson feared that Poles would be stubborn about keeping all the players he had drafted or signed, expecting the coach to make it work even if certain ones didn’t fit his vision for the team.
Poles wasted no time in the team’s interview with Johnson that there would be no such issue. He was committed to finding the right players for his head coach. Johnson was sold.
Poles’ lack of ego helped secure Ben Johnson.
That can’t be understated. Many general managers have big personalities and refuse to believe they’ve drafted bad players, regardless of scheme or system. Thus, they become stubborn about moving on from them even after a coaching change. Poles had already showcased his ability to adjust to what his coaches wanted with Matt Eberflus. He drafted two defensive backs to start his career in 2022 despite obvious needs on offense. He gave a huge contract to Tremaine Edmunds because it was who Eberflus wanted—giving D’Andre Swift a large contract because he’d make the running game more explosive? Fine.
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It was beyond evident that Poles was willing to work within the framework of what his head coach wanted. There was never any reason to doubt he wouldn’t do the same for Ben Johnson. All the coach needed was some assurances. Once he got them, things came together fast. This should be a partnership that functions well moving forward. Poles will get a feel for what Johnson wants in terms of personnel and craft a game plan from that. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
Given the ranking, Poles seemingly used a misguided paradigm to select a high percentage of players. Although a couple of these player selections will skew the results against Poles, simply add for accumulation all the actual selection positions and then add all the rankings of the players before the draft. Then compare the two sums. Then we should note how far off Poles machinations have been. But to increase Poles’ positive numbers, do these two accumulations for all of his draft selections covering all three years. Compare the two. Then do it for year 4 draft with Ben and see… Read more »
Let’s “speak” facts: All of Ryan Poles’ 2022 NFL Draft Picks are listed below — with Round selected; Overall order of the selection; and, enclosed in brackets, the Consensus Big Board Rank of the player within his, 2022 draft class. Kyler Gordon (2nd Rd. #39) [#38] Jaquan Brisker (2nd Rd. #48) [#55] Velus Jones Jr. (3rd Rd. #71) [#153] Braxton Jones (5th Rd. #168) [#153] Dominique Robinson (5th Rd. #174) [#125] _____________ Zachary Thomas (6th Rd. #186) [#284] Trestan Ebner (6th Rd.#204) [#327] Doug Kramer (6th Rd. #208) [#346] Ja’Tyre Carter (7th Rd. #227) [#260] Elijah Hicks (7th Rd. #255)… Read more »
@Dr. Melhus —
Why do you mischaracterize the issues at hand?
The Bears sad 15-36 record under Poles reveals more than any of our opinions ever could.
But, the long-awaited component of “accountability” is worth any amount of undeserved praise sent Ryan Poles’ way for making yet another more-than obvious choice — this time, of Head Coach.
Without “the concessions” which greatly reduce the “perpetual rookie” GM’s control of personnel (players, coaches and staff) — how many of you believe Ben Johnson would have signed on?
I thought so.
@Rocketrider: I know. In general, I no longer respond to @TGena’s posts, because of his propensity to cherry pick data that supports his preconceived notions of how Poles is awful. I wrote that reply for the rest of the SM readers, so that they could see a more complete picture of the situation. Poles is far from perfect, but he’s pretty good, better than many previous GMs. But here’s the most damning evidence. @TGena, @Dr.Sallie, and @Tred keep insisting that the Bears have an awful roster. See @Dr.Sallie’s post below, for example, “5 big losers on the Bears OL ….”… Read more »
All true! At least 5 big losers on the Bears OL selected by inept GM Poles–half of the 10-strong myth; all thought to be adequate by RoosterRider for several months.
I’d rather be on drugs to produce the correct view than Roosters inept brain to make the wrong views over and over. He is the low-life brain-rot hyena, not me The All-Black Lion. Roar!