It isn’t hard to guess what Chicago Bears fans think of Ryan Poles these days. They were patient with the young GM for the first couple of years. He was trying to rebuild the roster from scratch, hoping to set it up for long-term success. What followed was the worst stretch of consistent losing the organization has seen in decades. Arguably ever. His first head coaching hire, Matt Eberflus, became the first ever fired in the middle of the season because he was so hated in the locker room. On top of that, Poles’ track record of talent evaluation is looking worse by the day.
Still, maybe the perception is a little kinder inside league circles. Poles supposedly had plenty of fans among other teams when he was climbing the ladder as a scout. Are people in the know giving him the benefit of the doubt? Nope. Not even a little bit. Tyler Dunne of Go Long made that clear.
“Poles, described as a “Media GM” by those who’ve worked for him, has infested the organization in a multitude of ways. There’s the childish fixation with what’s being tweeted, the callous manner in which he fires people and, of course, that “rigged” draft process of 2024. Central to the worst roster management the league’s seen since Matt Millen two decades prior are vile personnel decisions. In a vacuum, one error is forgivable. Even two. Or three. But make the wrong choice…. repeatedly… and the result is what you saw inside Ford Field.”
For younger fans who may not know, Matt Millen is a former linebacker who won four Super Bowls in his career. After starting a broadcasting career in the 1990s, he somehow turned that into a job as team president and de facto general manager of the Detroit Lions in 2001. What followed was one of the darkest periods any NFL organization has ever experienced.
Ryan Poles might be even worse than Millen was.
Millen at least drafted one great player. That was Calvin Johnson in 2007. However, the rest of his resume is ugly. Most of his draft picks didn’t amount to much aside from the occasional bright spots like Cory Redding and Cliff Avril. His mismanagement eventually led the Lions to become the first team in NFL history to go winless in a season, finishing 0-16 in 2008.
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The thing with Millen was that at least he had the excuse of never having worked as a scout or front office guy before. What is Ryan Poles’ excuse? He spent a decade with the Kansas City Chiefs. He worked under Scott Pioli and John Dorsey, two guys who won Super Bowls as scouts with other teams. Despite all of the great lessons he learned from them, Poles has yet to produce a single Pro Bowler. He’s 15-38 as a GM, which is the worst in Bears history and not far off the pace Millen set in Detroit (31-97).