Hello IL Sports fans! Welcome to our third episode of the podcast. We took a brief hiatus, work got hectic but we are back. On today’s episode, we’ll go in depth on some of the moves Ryan Poles has made since becoming GM of the Bears. We’re going to pick out three good and bad moves since he became GM in 2022. Next, we’ll talk a bit of baseball as the offseason begins for the Cubs and White Sox. The Cubs have made the headline move to date, what else is in store for Chicago baseball? And we’ll wrap up with a few picks for the weekend. Let’s jump in.
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Ryan Poles was hired on January 25th, 2022. The 38 year old Boston College football player had a cup of coffee with the Bears as a player before getting into coaching. He was a grad assistant for a season at his alma matter for a season before pivoting to scouting, taking a position with the Kansas City Chiefs in 2009. Poles spent the next 12 years rising up the ranks on personal, winning a ring in the process before taking the big job in Chicago. Poles took over a 6-11 team without much talent, and no first round pick that upcoming draft due to trading up for Justin Fields. We’re coming up on two years under new leadership, a big enough body of work to evaluate some transactions. Let’s start with the good, here are our top three moves by Ryan Poles to date:
* Trade: 2023 #1 pick to Carolina (Bryce Young), Received: #9 pick 2023 (Traded to Philly (Jalen Carter) for #10 pick 2023 (Darnell Wright) and a 2024 4th round pick), #61 pick 2023 (turned into Tyrique Stevenson after a trade up), 2024 1st round pick (likely top 3 pick), a 2025 2nd rounder, and DJ Moore. This is by far the best move we’ve seen from Poles. The Bears likely weren’t super high on any of the top QBs in the 2023 draft (though CJ Stroud might end up making them look foolish). Add in what Justin Fields was able to show in 2022 and it didn’t make sense to hold onto the #1 pick. Carolina wanted to choose their QB for the future and paid a hefty price. DJ Moore is a proven #1 receiver and Darnell Wright could be a cornerstone of your O-line. Tyrique Stevenson has struggled as a rookie but we’ll see what kind of sophomore jump he makes. What makes this trade an A+ is the 2024 1st round pick. Justin Fields showed enough in 2022 to warrant a prove it season. If it didn’t work out, the Bears would have likely have a high pick from the Panthers, and have a shot to draft a new QB in what was widely considered to be a deep QB draft at the time (still is today). A+, a fantastic trade.
* Braxton Jones. Finding a serviceable LT in the 5th round is impressive. Souther Utah isn’t a typical draft hot spot, but Ryan Roles must’ve seen something in Braxton Jones to warrant using draft capital. Jones has been a solid player, and while he might not be the franchise LT, finding one that’s probably around league average in the 5th is a win.
* TJ Edwards: Bringing the Illinois native back to Chicago has been working out through 10 games. Edwards leads the team and the league in tackles, he’s been the best player on a bad defense. His contract is also a win, much more reasonable than Tremaine Edmunds, who was also brought in this offseason and has been much less productive for essentially 3x the cost.
Not many honorable mentions yet but two worth noting are the Montez Sweat deadline deal and extending Cole Kmet. It’s too early to evaluate the Sweat deal. Glad they got the extension done, was a tad skeptical at the time (this season has made me question the competence of the Bears more than usual). He’s an upgrade on the DL. Cole Kmet is developing nicely, extending him was a smart move. The Bears have a decent group of pass catchers. DJ Moore, Cole Kmet, Darnell Mooney are the headliners. Robert Tonyan is a solid #2 TE, rookie WR Tyler Scott has shown flashes in recent weeks. A certain WR out of Ohio State would also look fantastic in a Bears uniform, we’ll see how the 2024 draft plays out.
Now onto the bad and there are many that fit the bill
* Matt Eberflus: It’s easy to analyze moves after knowing how it played out. All three of the bad deals listed here were head scratchers at the time. Eberflus was the defensive coordinator of the Colts prior to taking over the HC role in Chicago. He’s credited with turning a poor defense into a middle of the pack NFL defense. Why was this a head scratcher at the time, and what’s gone wrong to date? The Bears had just drafted Justin Fields. Pairing him with an offensive minded coach was what most fans thought we would see. The Bears tried that for Mitch Trubisky, Matt Nagy clearly wasn’t the right guy for the job at the time. In comes Eberflus and the Bears seem to have taken another step back. 2022 was expected to be a poor year but the team was entertaining in the back half of the season. Justin Fields showed potential without much around. Bears fans wanted to see him protected and with weapons. 2023 seems to be a step backwards. This team still has holes but is more talented than last season. That’s not what you want to see in year two of the rebuild. For a defensive guy, the defense is terrible. Again, the talent isn’t there up front or in the secondary. But hiring a defensive guy, you’d expect to see his system imprinted and it doesn’t feel that way. If you’re going to bring in a coordinator with no HC experience, find someone top-5 at their side of the ball.
On top of performance on the field, two assistant coaches have been fired mid-season for HR issues. DC Alan Williams was let go early in the season, RBs coach David Walker was also relived of his duty recently. A HC typically hires his staff, selecting two coaches who were fired for off the field issues reflects poorly on him. Will Eberflus get one more season? We’ll see. This roster clearly has a long way to go. His seat will be warm heading into 2024.
* Chase Claypool. The Bears traded for the disgruntled Steelers WR in 2022. They gave up a second round pick, at the time it was likely to be a high pick. 2023 looked to be a poor WR free agent class, Ryan Poles was likely trying to jump the gun and bring in someone capable of producing. The Notre Dame product was productive his first two seasons in the league, scoring 9 TDs as a rookie, catching around 60 passes for 850 yards each season. However, on the field antics and off the field issues seemed to chip away his trust in Pittsburgh. After arriving in Chicago mid season, Claypool totaled just 140 yards in 7 games. It can be tough for a WR to adjust mid-season but it seemed like the staff really didn’t trust him. With #1 WR Darnell Mooney out for the season, Claypool’s numbers were head scratching to say the least. 2023 was worse. After a dismal early season effort, the WR was benched and eventually traded to Miami along with a 2025 7th round pick for a 2025 6th round pick. Yikes. Flipping the 32nd pick in 2023 for a 2025 6th is awful. Poles does deserve some credit for moving on quickly when it became apparent this wasn’t going to work out in Chicago. A lot of people would hold onto the player in that situation. Quickly moving on from the mistake is commendable. What makes this trade so frustrating is that a team in the early stages of a rebuild needs draft capital. Look at what the Blackhawks have done. They shipped out anyone they could get a pick for and have started stacking prospects. Even with high picks, you aren’t going to hit on every single one. That’s why it’s important to stack picks in a rebuild. The Bears have so many holes, you can’t just give away draft capital willy nilly, especially for a guy like Chase Claypool, shipped away because of character issues. If he had a reputation for being a great locker room guy, someone who behaved well on the field and was just the odd man out of a good WR room, maybe you can wrap your mind around the trade. That wasn’t the case. Claypool’s on the field and off the field performance in Chicago was awful. To close, a few names that went in the 2023 draft around the 32nd pick: Joey Porter Jr, Will Levis, Sam LaPorta, Derrick Hall, Matthew Bergeron. Oof.
* Velus Jones: This is the most frustrating one for me. Year one of the new GM, no first round pick in the 2022 draft. Poles spends a 3rd round pick on one of the oldest players in the draft, who is a gadget player at best. Jones was a dynamic returner at Tennessee but was knocked as a receiver for dropping passes. What has he done on the field Chicago? Mistake after mistake after mistake. Fumbling the ball, taking special teams penalties, dropping passes. Why get cute and draft a gadget player when you have so many needs? It didn’t make much sense at the time, it looks like a wasted pick now.
Honorable mentions: it’s early in his tenure but drafting seems to be an issue. Darnell Wright looks to be a solid RT but hitting on top-10 picks shouldn’t be difficult. Early returns on the 2022/2023 class aren’t encouraging. We’ll see how these guys develop, something to monitor.
Moving on from the Bears, let’s talk some baseball. The Cubs made a huge splash to start the offseason, bringing in former Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell to manage on the northside. You don’t make that move if you aren’t planning on being aggressive. Do they bring back Cody Bellinger? Swing for the fences and try to land Shohei Ohtani? Trade for Pete Alonso or Juan Soto? Bring in someone from Japan? Lot of possibilities and they have the talent to build around. The White Sox are in a much different position. New GM Chris Getz made headlines saying that he doesn’t like their team. After a 101 loss season, that’s understandable and probably refreshing for White Sox fans to hear. Sounds like some guys are going to get traded, Getz also said there are no untouchables. Building a winning culture will be important for the White Sox. If there is an untouchable, it should be Luis Robert. He’s among the best center fielders in baseball and someone you can build around. Like the Cubs, I’m curious to see what the Sox do this offseason. We’ll have it all covered here at The State of IL Sports.
Wrapping up, here are a few picks for this weekend. Starting with College Football, we’ll take UCLA over Arizona State at 1.13 decimal odds. Another week of not loving the board so we’re going to stick with one College Football pick. For College Basketball, we’ll take Cincinnati over Eastern Washington. Odds aren’t out for this one yet, it’s a Sunday game, anything over 1.20 decimal odds would seem like good value.
That’s all for today, we hope you enjoyed this episode. Like, rate, and subscribe on Apple and Spotify. And subscribe to our newsletter directly on Substack, you’ll get all of our content for free. Till next time, take care.
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