Ryan Poles Shares Key Chicago Bears Updates at 2026 NFL Combine

Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles met with the media at the 2026 NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis on Tuesday and addressed several key offseason topics.

Here are a few key takeaways from his comments.

Poles believes Bears should receive NFL Draft compensation for losing Ian Cunningham

It seems like a no-brainer that Chicago should receive the third-round comp picks issued to teams whose hiring practices elevate minority candidates into general manager positions, but, hey, these are the Chicago Bears. Nothing comes to this team easily.

It's nice to hear that the Bears aren't taking the NFL's initial ruling (that Cunningham isn't the Falcons' top football guy and doesn't meet the requirements for compensatory picks) without a fight.

Could Tyson Bagent be on the move?

This nugget is really interesting.

Beloved Bears backup quarterback Tyson Bagent has NFL starter's traits, and if it wasn't for Caleb Williams owning the next 15 years as the expected QB1 in Chicago, Bagent probably would've unseated Justin Fields by now.

Hence, the trade interest.

There are a lot of quarterback-needy teams right now, and there's already smoke around the Arizona Cardinals having a strong interest in trading for Bagent.

If the Bears can somehow pull off a Bagent-for-a-second-round-pick trade? Yeah, Poles can't pass that up.

"Poles is weighing what he, Ben Johnson, and the locker room think of Bagent versus the return, the price to replace him, and also the opportunity for Bagent to go play," ALLCHGO's Mark Carman wrote.

NFL Scouting Combine Sparks Speculation

The annual NFL Scouting Combine is where the framework for trades and free agency deals takes shape. The Chicago Bears will be at the epicenter of several of those hypotheticals, ranging from a potential Maxx Crosby trade, the future of receiver DJ Moore, and, now, Tyson Bagent.

But what's different about this year's NFL Combine is the status of the Bears organization. For the first time in a long time, they're winners. And, believe it or not, they're Super Bowl contenders.

Whether getting a few extra compensatory picks, trading Tyson Bagent, or hammering out the specifics of a blockbuster trade happens this week or not, the Bears are a team on the rise. And it makes NFL Combine week that much greater.