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Ryan Poles Rounds Out Staff
A few of Ryan Poles' latest hirings reflect a real attempt to synch up the Bears scouting department with the coaching staff.
They hired three area scouts, including Ryan Cavanaugh for the midwest. Cavanaugh has extensive experience scouting talent for teams using a defense very similar to the one used by coach Matt Eberflus and also for a year but team using a similar offensive style.
Cavanaugh Ohio State's college scouting coordinator last season but prior to that spent 12 seasons with the Houston Texans scouting the same area he'll have with the Bears and also the northeast. The Texans during much of that time under coach Gary Kubiak deployed the wide zone blocking scheme like the Bears will be using. He also scouted from 2001-2009 for the Indianapolis Colts while Tony Dungy implemented the cover-2 base defense that Eberflus has copied.
The other two scouts are Reese Hicks for the west coast and Tom Bradway for the northeast.
Bradway's experience includes three years with the Raiders, although he wasn't an area scout. He was a BLESTO scout and also player personnel scout. The Raiders have been another team relying on a 4-3 defense, not totally unlike the style the Bears will use. Cover-2 style proponent Rod Marinelli was with the Raiders defense the last two years, including one when he was a defensive coordinator.
Hicks is a former offensive lineman, like Poles and assistant Bears GM Iam Cunningham. He has been with the Atlanta Falconns the last four seasons as a pro scout and in 2017 was a scouting assistant. He sent 2003-06 playing offensive line for the Texans, Bengals, Broncos and Chargers.
In addition, Poles followed up on a statement he made at his opening press conference by hiring a football analytics director. He had called this an important position to get right at his opening press conference.
MIT graduate Krithi Chandrakasan joined the staff as the analytics chief. He knew Poles from Kansas City, where he had been running the analytics department startup since 2018 with various titles.
Another related position the Bears hired for is Ryan Hubley, who has been brought in as a football systems developer. The Johns Hopkins grad has a degree in computer science, applied mathematics and statistics. Hubley is a former Johns Hopkins wide receiver
The Bears hired an administrator for Eberflus' coaching staff. Sean Magee took the title of chief of staff, a rather vague role. A former Navy football administator, he had been with Michigan for five seasons as associate athletic director of football.
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