Some Love for Ryan Poles - Bear Fans Only

[playthrough2001]

This offseason, taken on its own, addressed exactly what the Bears needed.

Poles' stint with the Bears has to be looked at as a whole. Hopefully this shows growth on Poles' part.

No question. I totally agree.

I think the Carolina trade was brilliant.

I still think the Sweat trade was an excellent move.

Davis was a terrible signing.

Before Dalman, his treatment of the center position was handled poorly.

The Claypool trade was unfortunate but I understood what he was trying to achieve.

His first two draft picks, Gordon and Brisker, are damn good football players.

All three of his first round picks are durable and I believe all three will be top tier NFL players.

I like Tory Taylor but he was a luxury pick.

Velus was a big miss.

Kiran needs to show he belongs this season as at least a capable back up.

I think Braxton was a pretty damn good pick.

I think Dexter is trending toward being a disruptive force on the defensive line.

Stevenson has talent but he has to mature. He’s an idiot right now.

Keeping JJ and Kmet were both good decisions.

Eberflus was an uninspiring, massive miss. I don’t believe for a second he would have been Poles’ choice if Polian and George had not given him three names to consider.

I think getting Johnson and Allen is the other end of the spectrum.

No question, this draft is critical. He has three premium picks and 4 in the top 75. He needs to grab 4 young contributors and hopefully at least two high impact players with those selections.

I love the way he preemptively attacked the IOL with trades and then came away with Dalman. That’s nice work.

There’s plenty more to discuss. The best teams have continuity in their front office and coaching staff. My hope is Poles and Johnson are extremely successful and are here a long time.

 

[modo]

No question. I totally agree.

I think the Carolina trade was brilliant.

I still think the Sweat trade was an excellent move.

Davis was a terrible signing.

Before Dalman, his treatment of the center position was handled poorly.

The Claypool trade was unfortunate but I understood what he was trying to achieve.

His first two draft picks, Gordon and Brisker, are damn good football players.

All three of his first round picks are durable and I believe all three will be top tier NFL players.

I like Tory Taylor but he was a luxury pick.

Velus was a big miss.

Kiran needs to show he belongs this season as at least a capable back up.

I think Braxton was a pretty damn good pick.

I think Dexter is trending toward being a disruptive force on the defensive line.

Stevenson has talent but he has to mature. He’s an idiot right now.

Keeping JJ and Kmet were both good decisions.

Eberflus was an uninspiring, massive miss. I don’t believe for a second he would have been Poles’ choice if Polian and George had not given him three names to consider.

I think getting Johnson and Allen is the other end of the spectrum.

No question, this draft is critical. He has three premium picks and 4 in the top 75. He needs to grab 4 young contributors and hopefully at least two high impact players with those selections.

I love the way he preemptively attacked the IOL with trades and then came away with Dalman. That’s nice work.

There’s plenty more to discuss. The best teams have continuity in their front office and coaching staff. My hope is Poles and Johnson are extremely successful and are here a long time.

As much as Poles' is maligned, and he deserves his share, he has made some good choices.

He needs a head coach. I hope he found him.

As much as we kid about winning the offseason, Poles did everything he needed to right here right now.

 

[playthrough2001]

I'm all about giving Poles credit for what's been done so far this offseason. Has he taken at least some kind of advice from Ben Johnson and Dennis Allen on some of these free agents if not all of them? Of course he has and i think every GM does that for the most part. He's doing the work though and making the trades work for us.

I don't think Tev will get us any comp picks with already having 3 kinda high dollar signings with Dalman, Dayo and Jarrett though right?

No reason not to wait until prices come down now with already having every starting position locked down besides #3 WR.

For that i've been on the Elijah Moore and Rondale Moore train but now knowing how much Ben Johnson likes using his slot for blocking i'm thinking it'll be a Tim Patrick or another bigger WR that likes blocking which is fine but for the right price i'm still with either of the Moore's and wouldn't mind T.Lockett.

With RB i'm at the point now with take one with any pick besides #10 but i also see that taking Jeanty or Hampton at #10 after this offseason we've had so far isn't crazy. Also like Tyler Warren at #10.

Jarrett doesn’t count. He was cut.

If Jenkins gets more than 5 million, he eliminates Dayo. I believe Taylor eliminates Dalman.

If Allen gets more than 5 million, they might get a comp pick.

Also, I haven’t heard what the Rams gave Shelton. He might factor.

 

[sevvy]

Poles is still an idiot. Damn near everyone on this board knew the OL and DL would suck last year and that he didn't give the trenches the proper focus. It took him watching the Super Bowl winner to finally have a revelation. He hired a terrible HC and then didn't fire him when he should have. It took a huge embarrassment on national TV for him to finally fire his hire and he failed in how he went about that. Now he had no choice but to overpay for some FAs and give up more draft capital to try to correct his mess. Poles completely failed CW in year 1 with the OL and coaching. I have no respect for Poles. I am totally afraid of what Poles will do with 3 high draft picks.

While I agree with some of your points, I'm cautiously optimistic that the combo of Poles + Johnson will be much better than the combo of Poles + Eberflus. It is concerning that Poles fired Eberflus half a season too late. I think most of us wanted him gone before he could get his hands on Caleb. And now that you look at Eberflus' total body of work, he picked 2 bad OCs, he had major issues with his own coaching staff, he was just objectively bad at game decisions and game management, some players appeared to walk all over him, etc. It was bad.

The hope is that the previous years under Poles were him figuring it the **** out. Fingers crossed.

 

[dabears70]

Gotta spend when you have zero talent at IOL, which is on Poles. I'm glad he's spending and overall it's an obvious upgrade. But it kinda had to be and not cheap. Should give Caleb a chance anyway.

The DL guys fill holes but I'm not expecting either to be really plus guys. As it stands they probably have an average to slightly above average defense on paper. They need a difference maker at DL in the draft.

I really like this defense but really need guys like J.Brisker to stay healthy. With that happening the secondary is set and pretty damn good.

I'm interested in seeing how D.Allen uses T.Edmunds who was really good in Buffalo. I'm expecting them to make an addition there to replace Sanborn who i'm going to miss.

I think Grady Jarrett is going to make a difference on the DL and love that 4 man rotation of Jarrett, Dexter, Billings and C.Williams. Just need to make a big addition in the draft at DE for me with one of those first 3 picks.

 

[playthrough2001]

Poles is still an idiot. Damn near everyone on this board knew the OL and DL would suck last year and that he didn't give the trenches the proper focus. It took him watching the Super Bowl winner to finally have a revelation. He hired a terrible HC and then didn't fire him when he should have. It took a huge embarrassment on national TV for him to finally fire his hire and he failed in how he went about that. Now he had no choice but to overpay for some FAs and give up more draft capital to try to correct his mess. Poles completely failed CW in year 1 with the OL and coaching. I have no respect for Poles. I am totally afraid of what Poles will do with 3 high draft picks.

Washington, I’m going to list you on the “refuse to give any love list.” I’m sure you won’t be alone. Thanks for joining the conversation.

 

[playthrough2001]

No GM in Bears history has had such high draft capital and gotten so little out of it. He is 15-36 over 3 seasons. Anyone who thinks Poles is a good GM is an idiot.

I think you’re a little early considering he just acquired Caleb and Rome. Are you writing those guys off already?

A complete tear down leads to some heavy losses.

Eberflus lost a number of them too.

I think he’s doing a reasonable job and I’m pretty sure I’m not an idiot. I could be wrong about that though.

 

[Nelly]

Eberflus was an uninspiring, massive miss. I don’t believe for a second he would have been Poles’ choice if Polian and George had not given him three names to consider.

I've got a feeling this is what saved him. He wasn't allowed to conduct his own coaching search and was given a choice between 3 guys, one of which has the same agent. Given what came out about Trace Armstrong basically running the Bears and Poles reportedly having wanted to fire Eberflus before last year, George and company would have had to be like "ok, he's right, we should have got rid of this dude and hired Ben Johnson last year."

His record isn't that great otherwise outside of the #1 overall pick trade. For every Montez Sweat and Andrew Billins there's a Nate Davis and Chase Claypool.

 

[playthrough2001]

I've got a feeling this is what saved him. He wasn't allowed to conduct his own coaching search and was given a choice between 3 guys, one of which has the same agent. Given what came out about Trace Armstrong basically running the Bears and Poles reportedly having wanted to fire Eberflus before last year, George and company would have had to be like "ok, he's right, we should have got rid of this dude and hired Ben Johnson last year."

His record isn't that great otherwise outside of the #1 overall pick trade. For every Montez Sweat and Andrew Billins there's a Nate Davis and Chase Claypool.

I forgot about Billings. That guy was so good at Baylor. He’s a real nice get by Poles. He is willing to do the dirty work on every snap.

 

[onebud34]

I've got a feeling this is what saved him. He wasn't allowed to conduct his own coaching search and was given a choice between 3 guys, one of which has the same agent. Given what came out about Trace Armstrong basically running the Bears and Poles reportedly having wanted to fire Eberflus before last year, George and company would have had to be like "ok, he's right, we should have got rid of this dude and hired Ben Johnson last year."

His record isn't that great otherwise outside of the #1 overall pick trade. For every Montez Sweat and Andrew Billins there's a Nate Davis and Chase Claypool.

Flus felt too much like a Phillips hire. I'm cautiously optimistic that BJ will make the Bears competitive again.

 

[--CyBear--]

With all the top picks and money Poles has had to work with and things are just ok. Poles is just ok. I'm not impressed over all.

Works both ways. He created that money and most of those picks with his 1st year actions and trades. Worked a little too well, LOL.

 

[Nelly]

Flus felt too much like a Phillips hire. I'm cautiously optimistic that BJ will make the Bears competitive again.

Eberflus always felt like one of those guys who was obviously only going to be a good DC and never a good head coach. Vic Fangio, same thing.

 

[Washington]

Washington, I’m going to list you on the “refuse to give any love list.” I’m sure you won’t be alone. Thanks for joining the conversation.

This is a 5 win team until proven otherwise. Poles has not earned my respect to date. His approach to building the team from the outside in has not worked and now he is scrambling. I am OK with his OL signings but they are very expensive. I am not enamored at all over his 2 DL signings and they too are expensive. They are simply expensive rotational depth for me.

I do give him credit for getting BJ but his refusal to recognize his mistake with Flus and the embarrassment around Flus' demise still overshadow the BJ hiring to me at this time.

 

[--CyBear--]

In my view, one of the jobs of Ryan Poles (or any GM) is to consult with their Head Coach (who consults with his DC and OC) on what players fit their vision. It then becomes the responsibility of Poles to consult with his front office team to acquire those players in a manner that fits into the team’s present and future financial structure.

My hope is that our new HC and coaching staff are better at identifying the talent that they want, opposed to our old HC and coaching staff. I am not absolving Poles of making mistakes, but I believe he attempted to give Flus what he asked for. We shall see how things go moving forward.

What I’d like moving forward is to use our first 3 draft picks on the offensive and defensive lines, sign a WR that’s willing to do the dirty work necessary so that DJ and Rome can shine, and to collect any future draft picks that we can.

I agree with this but it's getting set up for BPA in the draft. That's always a relative term so within reason and some need.

 

[playthrough2001]

This is a 5 win team until proven otherwise. Poles has not earned my respect to date. His approach to building the team from the outside in has not worked and now he is scrambling. I am OK with his OL signings but they are very expensive. I am not enamored at all over his 2 DL signings and they too are expensive. They are simply expensive rotational depth for me.

I do give him credit for getting BJ but his refusal to recognize his mistake with Flus and the embarrassment around Flus' demise still overshadow the BJ hiring to me at this time.

I respect your opinion. Thanks again for contributing to the thread.

 

[--CyBear--]

I honestly don't care if Poles is good or lucky. If this goes right, I'm on board. If he was as bad as some want to opine we wouldn't have had this cap space and some other cost effective re-signings etc. It obviously hasn't been great either but his Carolina trades was masterful and he's obviously respected in the league. Some others were pretty bad. Hopefully were past his desperation trade phase.

 

[mattb78]

I think you’re a little early considering he just acquired Caleb and Rome. Are you writing those guys off already?

Of course not. But look at the immense amount of draft capital. He should have made this team a perennial playoff contender and now we are just hoping they are competitive.

He has traded draft picks for most of his talent which always ends in cap hell.

 

[Nelly]

I honestly don't care if Poles is good or lucky. If this goes right, I'm on board. If he was as bad as some want to opine we wouldn't have had this cap space and some other cost effective re-signings etc. It obviously hasn't been great either but his Carolina trades was masterful and he's obviously respected in the league. Some others were pretty bad. Hopefully were past his desperation trade phase.

This is what, his 4th year? He should have all the "new to this job" jitters out as well.

 

[--CyBear--]

This is what, his 4th year? He should have all the "new to this job" jitters out as well.

I think that happened for good at the post season press conference where he was part of the audience.

 

[Leon Sandcastle]

No GM in Bears history has had such high draft capital and gotten so little out of it. He is 15-36 over 3 seasons. Anyone who thinks Poles is a good GM is an idiot.

You’re not wrong but at the same time he did tear it down to the studs in that time frame.