Ryan Poles Plans to Interview Thomas Brown and Turn Around Team

During his weekly pregame interview with AM-1000, the Bears GM did not sound like someone expecting to be fired on Monday or at any time soon.

Ryan Poles called the painful ways the Bears found to lose one of the things he couldn't have foreseen. / Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

Ryan Pole plows ahead like someone with a defined goal and future.

Anyone hoping to hear Poles sound defeated or like a general manager on the verge of being fired had to be disappointed by his pregame show on ESPN AM-1000.

Interviewed by team radio play-by-play announcer Jeff Joniak, Poles said he can't wait to get started on turning it around.

"It's like they say -- a duck is calm at the top and kicking at the bottom," Poles told Joniak. "And that's just my personality and that's really my whole team.

"We're excited. We're hungry to get this football team to where it needs to be.

It's going to be all hands on deck and we're going to take a long look, and we have been taking a long look at how we got here and what may have caused a step back. I think it's critical to look at that and be critical about yourself in terms of my performance and where I can get better."

A step back this year seemed more like a drop into a bottomless pit, but Poles remains convinced there are some specific things that can be done to turn it around.

He told Joniak he plans to evaluate what went right and wrong and then "...create systems to improve those areas. And that goes for the whole football operation."

Poles said plans ahead are to restore a competitive edge and players confidence.

This, of course, would be through hiring the next coach.

"I'm confident with the makeup of our players in that locker room," Poles said. "With that said, those players want to be challenged. They want to be challenged, they want to be pushed."

This was one of the constant complaint by players this season, even before the decision to fire Matt Eberflus. They felt the coaches were not coaching them hard enough.

The first announced Bears interview will be with Thomas Brown. Poles confirmed Brown will be given an interview for head coach. There have been reports the Bears will have interest in others, but nothing concrete from the team or someone announced as a team source until now.

Brown said last week he hopes to be given an interview but hadn't been told this.

The Bears are 0-4 since Brown became interim coach.

"I've been so impressed with Thomas and his leadership. I know the results haven't come. That was a very difficult situation he's been put on."

Poles plans to find out what Brown sees as solutions for their current situation.

"He's someone that does challenge our players to get better, creates accountability," Poles told Joniak. "So there's a lot of really positive traits that Thomas has and I've been proud of how he stepped up and led this team do the stretch here.

"Again it's not the results that we wanted in terms of wins and losses but the traits of leader he actually has those."

Poles said the overall approach will be to keep the core of the team together in the offseason.

"Our young players continue to develop," he said, pointing to Kyler Gordon, Gervon Dexter and other veterans like Cole Kmet and DJ Moore as examples of successful players in a difficult year.

Asked by Joniak what he didn't see coming this season, Poles pointed to the obvious.

"I would say just some of the really painful ways to lose," Pole said.

No one following the Bears could have.