Sound Strategy Still Has Drawbacks

GM Ryan Poles should get and does deserve plenty of leeway in his decisions regarding the Bears rebuild.

This type of a reconstruction from the ground up was due with so many older players on the roster, enough that the Bears went into last season as the NFL's oldest team. The NFL is a young man's league and the defense had begun to crumble.

And besides that, the offense never worked right in four seasons under Matt Nagy, not to mention the three comical seasons under John Fox.

A complete rebuild requires sacrificing fans' hopes for now with an eye on great future success.

Poles hasn't come to Chicago looking to build a division winner or a competitive team. Rather, the goal is winning the Super Bowl and competing for it for years to come. This doesn't get done with a half-baked reboot if you're carrying around the oldest roster in the NFL.

Nevertheless, Poles is not perfect and there are flaws apparent in what he has done to date, reflecting possibly his total inexperience at this level of personnel decisions.

Here are Poles' mistakes in this rebuild.

6. Disappointing 2023 Free Agency

It's a rebuilding plan aimed at what looks like an almost limitless salary cap for the Bears to use in 2023. The only problem with that is the free agency market they will find in 2023 does not look like the talent pool for this year. It's expected to be pretty sparce at key positions like receiver, the defensive line and offensive tackle. Things change over the course of a season but only so much. Players at receiver who signed one year deals in free agency for this year will be there again, like JuJu Smith-Schuster, D.J. Chark and Jamison Crowder. Why would they sign them the second time around. Terry McLaurin might be the best receiver on the docket. The tackles list will be especially small Cam Robinson of Jacksonville highest on the board but no one else even approaching him in skill level.

5. Short-term Contracts and Answers

They've signed players to one-year and two-year contracts in free agency this year and while this can be helpful in avoiding ties in non-productive players, it's going to leave them open to the possibility of losing those players who are productive after a year or two. They might be right back next year with another large number of holes to fill if those players are productive and bolt or are unproductive. If the team isn't winning right away, which might be the case, it could be a case where productive free agents who re-enter the market after a year or two will decide they want to play for a winner and not a rebuilder.

The other problem with this is these are short-term contracts because they were not free agents with proven track records. They appear to be ascending in many cases, yet they could have peaked and the Bears merely signed less talented players who have already reached their high point. The fact many of them had lesser roles with their previous teams suggests this is the case.

The good news is they didn't spend a lot for these guys for a long period. The bad news is if they fail, the Bears are right back where they were before free agency began.

Pats essentially swap a 4th this year (the value of a 3rd next year) for a 5th this year and Parker.

Not sure what Ryan Poles thinks of Parker, but if this is all it took to acquire him - I'd have to say not too much. Poles is holding course on building from scratch, full-stop. https://t.co/OHLtUA4WoE
— EJ Snyder (@FootballEJ) April 2, 2022

4. Medical, Medical, Medical

From the way Poles acted rapidly and decisively in going after a three technique for Eberflus' defensive line, it's apparent Larry Ogunjobi was the foundation of rebuilding the defense. That was a big contract for a player who hadn't exactly been the darling of analytical websites like Pro Football Focus, and someone who obviously had a season-ending injury in January.

Poles complained at the owners meetings to reporters about the process of free agency and medical situations.

"I've had a lot of conversations and I almost feel like the process is flawed a little bit where I wish we could have some of these images and some of the physicals done before," he said in a widely reported comment. "That's going to be some type of rule change. I don't know the process in getting that done."

Then he added that it's possible some other players they might have been able to address in free agency were allowed to get away to some other team while they were dealing with a player they couldn't get.

That can't happen, not when you've actually got an assistant GM now. There are enough people to deal with eventualities.

Free agency has been going on since 1993. They don't have the pre-free agency medical scenario in effect he spoke about. Yet, there are countless other GMs over the decades who have not been vicitmized like this by a bad physical.

That's on Poles and his staff to know this information before letting the process get so far.

Former GM Jerry Angelo loved using the phrase "doing your due diligence."

Maybe Poles learned about doing due diligence from his very first signing.

3. Pressure Is On in Draft No. 1

Without getting any proven wide receivers, only one offensive lineman and by settling for a three technique in Justin Jones who has only 4 1/2 sacks in four seasons, Poles really is putting the pressure on himself to come up with a completely successful draft class that contributes immediately. It's not going to be easy with no first-round, fourth-round or seventh-round picks, even if he does have twin picks in the second and fifth rounds.

2. Restless Natives

If Poles thinks he's receiving excessive criticism now for dismantling the team the way he did, wait until what happens if 2024 roles around and they haven't drastically improved.

It's not easy to attain positive strides in two years after tearing everything down so thoroughly, either. Some would say he's buying himself time by undertaking this approach. Remember, the Bengals were looking at six total wins after Year 2 of their rebuild.

Will a fan base without a playoff win since the 2010 season patiently wait by while he sets in motion a rebuild requiring extensive time?

1. They Haven't Helped Justin Fields Enough

Sure, they can't address everything and it is a rebuild. But there are key places where Fields has no help at all, or very marginal help.

It's not just at wide receiver, although this is a pretty good place to start.

Not rushing out to waste money on deals for older or more expensive receivers was wise, especially when Jacksonville drove up asking prices across the board by paying more for Christian Kirk. Yet, the receivers they have signed are definitely on the questionable side. Byron Pringle as promise. Equanimeous St. Brown did very little after his rookie year in Green Bay.

Cole Kmet is the only tight end. You have to love Jesper Horsted's effort and persistence but he has been a practice squad level tight end who converted from wide receiver over the better part of three years and he is the only tight end they have besides Kmet.

The offensive line that allowed the most sacks in the league last year has been upgraded only at center. They've actually taken a step back at left tackle and right guard. James Daniels hadn't really fufilled the promise of a second-round selection but was still better than Dakota Dozier, the guard they obtained in free agency who is merely a backup.

In some respects they're telling Fields just wait until 2023 when they can really use their cash surplus to load up on offense.

With what they've given him to work with on the offensive line, he might need 2023 just to recover from the beating he'll be taking in 2022.

By doing this, they're now taking away Fields' first two years when he could be proving himself worthy of a contract extension and it's going to give him only the third year to really impress people with wins.

It's going to take a really strong individual performance from Fields to get this team anywhere near .500 in 2022.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven