Bear Digest

Bears GM explains his decision not to go hog wild with a big trade

"There’s a lot of deals we could've made," Ryan Poles admitted. However, he was committed to building over tossing early draft picks at possible quick edge rush fixes.
Gene Chamberlain|
Bears GM Ryan Poles admitted Wednesday he found some of the trades made Tuesday pretty surprising but the Bears are focused on building for the long haul.
Bears GM Ryan Poles admitted Wednesday he found some of the trades made Tuesday pretty surprising but the Bears are focused on building for the long haul. | Chicago Bears On SI Photo: Chicago Bears video

In this story:

Chicago Bears

The idea of making a move for one of the big-name pass rushers reported to be on the market definitely occurred to Bears GM Ryan Poles.

So did the cost.

The end result was Joe Tryon-Shoyinka as the defensive end they acquired with a seventh-round draft pick from Cleveland for a sixth-rounder. It wasn't quite the Trey Hendrickson, Maxx Crosby or Myles Garrett trade some Bears fans seemed to think they should go all out for in exchange for Day 1 and 2 picks without sufficient cap space, but their GM said he looked into all possibilities.

"There’s a lot of deals we could've made," Poles said during a chat with reporters before practice Wednesday at Halas Hall. "But like I said, too, those conversations, we were talking about the impact on our team, short-term, long-term. This was the one we decided to go with."

The players who actually were available and got traded included edge rushers Jaelan Phillips to the Eagles and Dre'Mont Jones to the Ravens, not Hendrickson, Garrett or Crosby.

"All I can say is we made calls across the league and I check up on all of the guys you would imagine just to see the availability," Poles said. "You get different answers. Sometimes they change if you start three weeks prior as you get closer (to deadline). Things come up and down based on how teams are doing and how they feel about the player.

"Sometimes they go to the player and ask him, how do they see the future and go from there. We turned pretty much every stone to find those answers and then, yeah, the timing worked out where we got the extra week to see Book (Austin Booker) get going again and I think it reminded us back to the momentum he had going in the preseason. You saw those flashes and we expect those to continue to come."

Key to Pole's decision against going after the really big names was draft pick cost, a commodity he covets highly.

"That was part of our conversation when we talked about how we wanna build this team," Poles said. "That’s through the draft. I’ll tell you what, this (coaching) staff, too, I’m sure you all see it—the development of some of these players, whether it’s Booker, or if it’s Noah Sewell—those guys have continued to get better. I think they’ve closed a pretty big gap with this new staff.

"So that gets me even more excited and gets Ben excited to watch our coaches work with these young players that we draft, that are young now, that we draft in the future, to have a big role on our football team."

Where the Bears are in development with coach Ben Johnson in his first season also made a difference in not throwing away draft picks. The Bears are not a Philadelphia, coming off a Super Bowl and gambling by grabbing for players to plug a hole for another run at the expense of building.

"Yeah, I think you factor that in, but you’re also factoring in that this is a first-year coach who is getting going," Poles said "There’s a newness on the offense you can still see. There are a little bit of choppy moments and I know he’s talked to (media) about that, where he wants it a little bit more efficient.

"So it’s the timeline the coaches are on as well, as far as getting these new schemes implemented as well as the youth of our football team in developing because it remains the same. We want to sustain for a long period of time. We feel like with Joe we can move the needle a little bit and we can continue to get better just through execution but then also continue to build through the draft so that we can sustain it a lot more rather than throwing if it’s money, if it’s draft picks. That timeline starts to get shorter and shorter once you get there."

Tryon-Shoyinka faced the Bears with Tampa Bay and in 2023 had one of his two career multi-sack games against the Bears.

"Real athletic," Poles said. "If you guys remember a couple years ago when we played them, he had a really good game. I think he had like six pressures and two sacks. Someone that we really liked coming out (in the draft) as well. But I think he can help us."

Poles wasn't concerned about the fact Tryon-Shoyinka was basically not playing in Cleveland. He had only 31 defensive plays in the first half of the season.

"Yeah, I think any time you go to a new team, you're going to have obviously Myles Garrett and you're going to have a couple guys that were homegrown there that got ahead of him and (he) just didn't get worked in," Poles said. "They felt comfortable with their depth."

So the Browns made the trade and it's possible the Bears will have Tryon-Shoyinka playing Sunday against the Giants after the loss of Dayo Odeyingbo for the season due to a torn Achilles.

Although Poles actively inquired about some of the bigger names who weren't being shopped—
or were at too high of a price—he still admitted to being shocked by some of the trades actually made.

"Well, some of them did," he said. "I didn’t see some of them coming. Yeah. There were some stunned moments there but nothing surprises me.

"Teams do what they need to do and what they think they need to do in certain windows. They’re willing to give up a lot more. We just get to see how it plays out and how it impacts their football team, short and long (term)."

More Chicago Bears News

Sign Up For the Bears Daily Digest - OnSI’s Free Chicago Bears Newsletter

X: BearsOnSI

Published
Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.