Looking at the sorry state of the Bears 3 years into Poles' tenure, I'm wondering if the teardown of 2022 was really necessary. Especially considering how ineffective Poles has been in replacing players.
Even with their short comings, I thought that Mack still had gas in the tank and that Roquan was still someone you could build a defense around. Mack was a huge cap hit, and it made sense to lose the contract and gain draft capital. However, he never drafted a premium pass rusher and instead spent a 2nd round pick on Sweat and signed him to a 90 mil deal only for him to perform worse than Mack. Roquan isn't perfect, but he's more effective than Edmunds for around the same price and was a locker room leader for the Bears. Quinn was long in the tooth and expensive, so I could see why he'd be traded, but he may have had another season or two of effectiveness after a record breaking season.
Poles also failed to resign Mooney, Monty, and Daniels. At the time it made sense to let them find greener pastures. But looking back Keenan Allen isn't any better than Mooney for the cost of a 4th and probably a more expensive contract to extend him. Mooney was definitely more effective than Claypool and didn't cost a 2nd. Poles still hasn't found a G as good as Daniels, and Daniels wasn't a world beater. Swift doesn't run well between the tackles and can't overcome a bad line any better than Monty. He does have better big play ability though.
We can see that the 3 years of rebuilding has taken a toll on the locker room. You can see how demoralized they were in 2022, energized a little in 2023, and how it's all fallen apart in 2024.
In retrospect, it looks like Poles was eager to recreate the Bears in his image, but he just wasn't experienced or knowledgeable to do it effectively. Instead of keeping leaders of the locker room and building around them, he wanted new pieces to build around. Maybe the Bears needed a tear down and rebuild, but Poles wasn't the guy to do it. We're just as bad or worse than when Poles took the job.
