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Where Ryan Poles and His Coach Are in Lock Step May Anger Bears Fans

The Bears GM tells NBC Sports' Lou Canellis he and Ben Johnson see eye to eye on one way to handle the draft, and it can impact one of their greatest needs.
Gene Chamberlain|
Bears GM Ryan Poles is sticking to his long-held belief in how to approach this year's draft, or any of them.
Bears GM Ryan Poles is sticking to his long-held belief in how to approach this year's draft, or any of them. | Photo: Chicago Bears video

The Bears have gone through three-plus weeks of free agency and move ahead toward the draft later this month without adding the one position fans seem to demand the most from GM Ryan Poles.

That, of course, is edge rusher. They want to see quarterbacks at least looking somewhat harried before they throw for a change.

No Maxx Crosby trade, no Trey Hendrickson signing, not even a Jadeveon Clowney from the proverbial traveling mercenary pass rusher mobile that tours at the end of free agency every offseason. While they made a few defensive tackle additions, the answer seems to be counting on Dayo Odeyingbo to return healthy from Achilles surgery, Shemar Turner to come back from an ACL tear and the starting duo of Montez Sweat and Austin Booker.

GM Ryan Poles went to Arizona State's pro day at the end of last week, and stayed around the area for the owners meetings. He told Chicago NBC sports anchor Lou Canellis on Tuesday that he's not feeling any particular pressure to draft an edge rusher, even if it seems every Bears fan is putting it out there. And coach Ben Johnson doesn't seem to be applying pressure for one, either—at least on the surface of it.

It's still best available

"No. Philosophically that's something Ben and I are  aligned on," Poles said. "It's best player available. I think where we can get in trouble is if we start forcing things just because of need. I think that's when we can start having issues.

"So we'll take the best player available. Obviously, if there's three guys that are aligned in terms of the value that we see, we may prioritize them based on needs, but if someone's standing out higher in that group of guys that we're looking at at (No. 25) we'll take the best player."

That's been his story all along since the postseason press conference, through the combine and the end of the first week of free agency. It remains so as April is upon us.

Poles admitted to Canellis that temptations have arose, which he full expected.

"Its really difficult," Poles said. "There's some really cool opportunities that pop up and when you kind do kind of the analysis of how does this impact us as we move forward, if that comes back as probably negative then you want to pump the brakes on that."

Would that have been the Crosby trade? They never really got close to it according to sourced stories on what happened between Baltimore and the Raiders on that failed trad.

"So we want to stay disciplined on our approach," Poles told Canellis. "As we get through this draft, it's taking the best available. There's going to be some needs and hopefully that lines up. We always hope that that lines up. Sometimes it doesn't."

The Colston Loveland situation last year arms Poles with a strong argument for sticking to this belief. No one cited tight end as their greatest possible need last year but they went with the best players they saw for them at No. 10 and took the tight end even with Cole Kmet already under contract.

"But we can't be wrong with continuing to add good football players to the football team and we did that last year with Colston," Poles said. "It worked out really well. So we'll take the same approach."

Things are different for this team

The problem is, the Bears are at a point where there is only one real starting lineup hole, possibly two if you don't like their options at left tackle to replace injured Ozzy Trapilo.

If you're adding players to develop instead of drafting a safety for an immediate starting spot, then it makes little sense to avoid helping out starting edges Booker and Sweat when they simply need another good pass rusher to provide relief during games.

The Bears are drafting in a spot where they're not going to be certain of landing a starter, anyway. The late first round isn't a breeding ground for superstars.

Now, being 25th in the first round, 57th and well back in Round 2, they need to take a shot at a player or two just because they'll be choosing so far back and they have more specific needs than they had a year ago.

The talent pool in this draft is said by analysts to be average to below average but the Bears can make it work in their favor best by targeting a few players as priorities to land just to fill their few needs.

Best player available is a nice talking point for teams building before making a run at the playoffs.

Regardless of what Johnson says about last year being ancient history, they were two wins from the Super Bowl. Getting past that to the next level needs to be the goal, and targeting a few needed players for those vacancies is the best way to get the talent needed to get over the hump.

A team two wins from the Super Bowl is one trying to make the next step and not start from scratch.

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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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