Bears Healthy and Hoping to Ascend

GM Ryan Poles wanted to apply no brakes to the momentum building surrounding the Bears as they head into the second year under coach Matt Eberflus.

As Justin Fields and all the players reported to Halas Hall Tuesday, the Bears GM said he doesn't want to limit where the team can go after they finished 3-14 a year ago and have since changed half the starters for the second straight year.

"I don't want to put a ceiling on what we can be but I know our goal is always to win the division and be a championship caliber team," Poles said. "That standard's always going to be there.

"And I would even say that I think every year, regardless if you're a Super Bowl team or wherever you're at, there's a lot of unknowns. So that's what makes your job really hard is you constantly have to adapt and adjust and be on your toes to make adjustments and try to be the absolute best that you could possibly be."

The Bears have about as many unknowns as anyone after bringing in free agents Tremaine Edmunds, T.J. Edwards, Andrew Billings, DeMarcus Walker and Rasheem Green for their defense, flipping around their offensive line and acquiring DJ Moore on offense.

"We really aim to be the best in the league at preparing our players and I think they did an outstanding job," Poles said. "So we're excited about the season. We've improved our roster, we've improved continuity and we're excited about that.

"We're excited about raising the level and raising the expectations. I think great teams have high expectations and they go chase that. And that's what we're gonna do and we're gonna do that in training camp."

Being healthy at the outset can't hurt. Poles said wide receivers Chase Claypool and Darnell Mooney will start out on the field at practice but there will be some players who get individualized attention as far as their practice routine at camp.

Mooney would certainly be one after undergoing ankle surgery.

"He's worked his butt off with our training staff," Poles said. "Obviously he cleared to be a participant in practice. And, like I said, what we're going to do is we're going to use our data, we're going to use our performance staff to monitor where he's at. We're going to make sure that we have the right plan so he's not pushed too fast but we're also not going to go too slow either.

"So we're going to just make sure it's right for him as an individual plan to make sure that by the time we get to the season he's rolling."

Claypool had a strange situation where the Bears put him on the physically unable to perform list and then pulled him off it a day later.

"Just needed an extra day or two to get him right and we're excited about him," Poles said. "He's been working hard. He's been spending extra time with our staff getting up to speed. He's been with Justin building that relationship with him so they can play well together."

Fields said Claypool has actually worked with him a few times in the off-season that weren't really reported about or posted on social media in addition to working with a big group of receivers in Florida two weeks ago. He also revealed the injury was to Claypool's knee and not a soft tissue injury.

The players went through conditioning tests on Tuesday as they reported.

"I issued a challenge to them," Eberflus said. "They had 40 days in the summer to come back in great shape and we've seen several of those guys, you'll talk to some of those guys here, body comps are down, lean mass is up, strength and endurance is up."

The biggest issue before Poles at the moment is adding an edge rusher. He remained non-committal but acknowledged the possibility.

"I think that's another beautiful thing about this game is you know everything right now is on paper, but there's guys that we have expectations for that are on our football team that we hope to develop and take that role," Poles said, referring to Dominique Robinson, Trevis Gipson, DeMarcus Walker and Rasheem Green. "But at the same time, we're always going to search to improve our roster.

"So if it’s a defensive end or any position that we think can enhance our team we're going to stay after them and stay in engaged and see if we can improve our team that way."

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