Stop if you’ve heard this before. A young man played college football but never played in the NFL. Rather than look for work elsewhere, he decided to give scouting a try. He finds quick success, winning a Super Bowl around a decade into his career. That helps catapult him up the ladder to where he becomes a GM before his 40th birthday. That describes Ryan Poles, right? Well, it also describes former Jacksonville Jaguars general manager Dave Caldwell. That is not a name Chicago Bears fans should want to hear.
Yet evidence keeps growing that Poles has become this team’s version of Caldwell. The former GM rode a Super Bowl win in Indianapolis and a franchise turnaround in Atlanta to the Jaguars job. From there, he put together one of the most underwhelming runs of roster-building in memory. His first three drafts featured lots of high picks but no big hits.
He didn’t land a star until his fourth draft with Jalen Ramsey, yet that didn’t change the team’s fortunes. Through his first four seasons, Caldwell went 15-49. His obvious lack of leadership and poor choice of head coach in Gus Bradley kept Jacksonville in a perpetual state of awful.
Sound familiar?
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Ryan Poles is just another version of Caldwell.
He also lacks leadership skills and somehow got a contract extension and the ability to hire a second coach despite clear evidence that he didn’t deserve it. Caldwell managed to survive thanks to a surprise playoff run in 2017, which enabled him to stick around through 2020 before he was fired. In many ways, Jacksonville still hasn’t fully recovered from that experience. That is the position the Bears have put themselves in. This team looks nothing like a winner. The roster is still deeply flawed, with no clear solutions to fix it.
Hiring Ben Johnson was only part of the solution. They need a serious infusion of talent, and Ryan Poles hasn’t shown any capacity to find it. His first three drafts have yet to yield a single Pro Bowler. He is 15-38 so far in his tenure, including 3-17 against the division. They have zero stars. Getting hammered in Detroit on Sunday was a reminder of how wide the gap remains between this team and legitimate success.
Unless the Bears are willing to admit they made a mistake with Poles, this nightmare won’t end anytime soon.