What Ryan Poles Quietly Revealed About the Chicago Bears During the NFL Draft

The Chicago Bears made quite the statement with the way they operated during the 2026 NFL Draft.

Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles. | Daniel Bartel-Imagn Images

The lack of a selection at edge rusher was the most glaring issue Chicago Bears fans and writers had with the team's 2026 NFL Draft.

Adding to the edge rusher group was one of the hottest topics of conversation all offseason long — and for good reason.

Chicago simply didn't rush the quarterback good enough in 2025, whether that be from the edge rusher spot or the interior of the defensive line.

Especially over the last decade, we've seen time and time again that Super Bowl-winning teams dominate in the trenches, yet a Bears squad with Super Bowl aspirations hasn't done much at defensive line, and hasn't done anything at edge rusher.

What Poles revealed about the Bears

Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles. | David Banks-Imagn Images

We can talk about Poles and head coach Ben Johnson going with the old "best player available" strategy, but it's just hard to fathom that not a single edge rusher was atop the Bears' board over six rounds.

That tells us the Bears are fully confident in the coaching staff and the players already on the roster to get Chicago's pass-rush moving in the right direction.

We got a good idea of this during the draft as every pick came and went and the team didn't take an edge rusher. Then, after the draft, Johnson confirmed it.

"We are excited about the guys that ended up finishing the season on IR, the trajectory that they were on, both Dayo and Shemar," he explained. "When you look at it from the start of the season to the point where they both got injured, we saw growth and we saw them trending in the right direction, in terms of what we want to see on game day."

"I think you saw tremendous growth from (Austin) Booker when we were finally able to get him back (healthy), as well," Johnson said. "The combination of us being able to coach better and those guys taking the next step as part of this system, I think we have some pretty good pieces to work with."

Rolling the dice

Chicago Bears defensive end Austin Booker. | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

Chicago's strategy at edge rusher opposite Montez Sweat amounts to a roll of the dice.

Dayo Odeyingbo and Shemar Turner had just one sack between them before they got hurt. Odeyingbo and Turner are both coming off significant injuries, with Odeyingbo returning from the second torn Achilles of his football career and Turner from a torn ACL.

As we know, players aren't always themselves in the first year back from those injuries, so there's no telling what Chicago will get out of them.

We're no doubt highest on Booker, who posted 4.5 sacks in 2025 after getting right following an first-half injury. But Booker is not a proven commodity yet.

Those are a lot of question marks for the Bears to bank on, but for now it appears to be full speed ahead for Chicago.