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Bear Digest

Flaws in Ryan Poles' Logic with Dispatched DBs Is Difficult to Find

Losing DJ Moore made economic sense, but the loss of DBs to other teams at cheap prices merely says the market saw what the Bears saw with them.
Gene Chamberlain|
Jaquan Brisker revs up the Soldier Field crowd coming out of the tunnel during pregame introductions.
Jaquan Brisker revs up the Soldier Field crowd coming out of the tunnel during pregame introductions. | David Banks-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

It hurts losing players a team wants to keep or has had a long time.

Getting rid of DJ Moore definitely hurt Bears GM Ryan Poles personally, but as Moore himself and Hyman Roth said, this is the business they have chosen.

"I knew that that was going to be tough for our organization," Poles explained Thursday about Moore's trade for cap purposes. "I've mentioned this before. My son is a passionate fan of the Chicago Bears. He was not very happy with me at all.

"I think it was cool DJ sent him a video telling him not to be mad at dad and it’s part of the business. Like I said, I appreciate everything those guys that aren't here did for our organization to help us ascend and get better, get us on the doorstep of being the championship caliber team."

The Jaquan Brisker Risk

One of those would be safety Jaquan Brisker. Call the Bears fools but three concussions in three seasons, including a big one ending his 2024 year after only four-plus games, is a reason not to participate in pursuing a player.

The Bear know the medical history and nature of the situation. He got through 2025 without one and hopefully he can go on and never have another, but three in three years is frightening and when you're talking about 16 games missed in his first three seasons, even $5.5 million from Pittsburgh for one season doesn't seem like a cheap investment.

Brisker gave up five touchdown passes last year in a contract  season, and had a 127.6 passer rating against when targeted. He allowed 75% completions when targeted (36 of 48). Those are not good numbers. In his previous full season, well ... he didn't have one, but in the next closest thing to a full season he allowed a 110.6 passer rating with six TD passes. Inconsistency was always a problem.

The Bears are determined to get  younger and faster and Dennis Allen knows the type of safeties and cornerbacks he need for his scheme. He didn't have them last year an made do with what he had. Coby Bryant is an example of one he wanted. They've no doubt got their eye on another safety in the draft.

The $5.5 million tells the story here. The rest of the league thought the same thing about performance and risk with Brisker.

Departed DBs allowed a lot of TDs

Another dispatched player was Nahshon Wright, who allowed six TD passes and got only $5.5 million to sign in New England. This was a waiver wire player coached up to lead the NFL in takeaways but also had similar faults allowing big plays in coverage.

For him, $5.5 million from the woeful Jets might seem low but it's what his market was for a reason, and that was all the big plays he allowed. He gave up more passing yards (813) than anyone in the entire league except Amik Robertson (947), Marlon Humphrey (920) and Riley Moss (859).

Giving up TDs and also yards was a common theme for the players in the secondary who were allowed to leave.

Another of those  was C.J. Gardner-Johnson, though it wasn't as difficult letting him leave because he was only a midseason pickup. He did what they needed but never was part of the plan going forward. He had one good game, later missed the playoff game with Green Bay with a hamstring injury, and then was OK the next week.

Gardner-Johnson reportedly got $6 million from Buffalo and that was a good contract for him considering the sour turn his career had taken when run out of Houston. He allowed three TD passes in a little over half a season of Bears snaps, 565 to be exact.

Letting Byard go couldn't have felt good considering what he meant in the locker room. He is getting up there in age for a safety and $9 million was the market's price, a fair one considering that besides making a league-high seven interceptions, he allowed a team-high seven TD passes. That tied him for fifth-most allowed in the NFL. New England is a good fit for him with Mike Vrabel there.

Byard lost to younger, sleeker model

It was obvious Poles got what he wanted instead of Byard when he looked at film and saw Bryant's speed and youth. These were assets he said he wanted in the past.

"You have certain plans; there's guys that you would like to have back and kind of seeing how the landscape set up and you do your research," Poles said, referring to Byard. "When we watched Coby’s tape he was a guy that got us excited. Because again, he played our style of ball.

"He played fast, he played physically. Those are the things that (defensive  coordinator Dennis Allen) is looking for, that we're looking for. We thought there was leadership there. He's young and we had to adapt to that and we had the opportunity to bring a really good player in and that's the decision that we made.”

Better speed was the central theme throughout .

"In order to play the style we need to play that we need to be able to close on the football a lot faster than what we have been doing," Poles said. "That was the emphasis going into it. And again, watching these guys tape we answer that.”

GMs must project the future. You can't replay last season or the season before that. It's why someone like Maxx Crosby isn't in a Ravens uniform, and maybe even a Bears uniform.

A knee injury like he had can eventually lead to missed games in the future. That's not saying it will, but at age 28 and 29 in August, he's more likely to find bouncing back tougher than at age 25.

Poles has found people at many of the positions where he had players leave. He hasn't found a Brisker replacement, but the draft should be an easy place or this with a decent crop of safeties available.

It's also going to have to be where he finds an edge, barring a late trade or signing of a lesser-regarded veteran pass rusher at much cheaper rate.

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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.

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