Bear Digest

Ryan Poles Stands Up to Accept His Blame in the Great Collapse

The 2024 Bears season will be known for their 10-game losing streak and the Hail Mary that triggered it and Ryan Poles pointed out where he deserved blame.

Gene Chamberlain

The Hail Mary pass and its aftermath helped to crumble the Bears foundation and GM Ryan Poles accepted some of the blame.
The Hail Mary pass and its aftermath helped to crumble the Bears foundation and GM Ryan Poles accepted some of the blame. / Geoff Burke-Imagn Images
In this story:

With all of the focus diverted toward the Bears coaching search, it was almost easy for GM Ryan Poles to skate away at Tuesday's season-ending press conference totally unfettered over his failed first coaching hire and other mistakes.

Eventually, however, after all the talk about a new coach subsided, Poles had to answer for the failures of the Matt Eberflus regime and the horrific job offensive coordinator Shane Waldron did.

"We lost games," Poles said. "At the end of the day, the wins and losses and the record that's on me. I'm in charge of the football operation.

"I've been entrusted to get this organization to a championship caliber, and we came up short with that. I have to take responsibility for that."

Apparently 15 wins and 36 losses in three seasons isn't a poor enough track record to do significant damage to Poles' career, as he remains the man operating Bears personnel and also has the point on the coaching search.

Poles last year backed coach Matt Eberflus, after hiring him in 2022 from a handpicked group of three candidates provided by George McCaskey's committee. It obviously didn't work out and an offense ranked last in the league says so.

It's the first time they ranked last on offense since Terry Shea ran the 2004 offense and Eberflus' hiring of Waldron created the situation.

"When we went through the interview cycle with Shane, I think there's some compatibility things," Poles said. "I think there's some challenges with pairing–and I answered this before–a rookie quarterback that has a lot of growth. He had 37 starts in college. You'd like to have them in that 35 to 40 range, and there's a lot of growth there.

"There's some compatibility to make sure that it's being taught the right way. I think there's some, some hiccups there. That's part of the ownership piece that I have to take."

In other words, Poles saw little ability from Waldron to work with Caleb Williams at an NFL instructional level early in his career and this is on Poles as much as Eberflus.

Under Waldron for nine games against a collection of decidedly easier opponents, Williams had an 81.0 passer rating with 178 completions in 294 attempts (60.5%) for 198.3 yards a game with nine touchdowns, five interceptions and an 81.0 passer rating.

After interim coach Brown took over the offense as first coordinator and then head coach, Williams completed 64.5% for with 11 touchdowns, only one interception and 219.5 yards a game. His passer rating in those last eight games was 95.3. He did it while facing six playoff qualifiers along with the 49ers and the Seahawks.

The most critical juncture in the season for the Bears was easily the Hail Mary pass in Washington, an 18-15 defeat Oct. 27. It caused a total free fall, one that finally ended with Sunday's 24-22 win at Green Bay.

Poles had to admit the one midseason defeat was a silver bullet of sorts for the entire Bears season, and some of their underlying problems came to the surface afterward.

"That's a tough way to lose," he said. "I think a lot of questioning happens in terms of how did we get there. It’s emotional in terms of the drain that comes from a loss like that.

"That’s where we have to be better in terms of resilience of bouncing back and getting back to things. It was disappointing to see things go south after that deal. There are a lot of learning lessons from that game for our guys to make sure we don’t put ourselves in that position again.”

The problem players have all pointed to from the midst of the losing streak until its end was a lack of accountability. Players weren't being held accountable by coaches, and Tyrique Stevenson with the Hail Mary was an example. His penalty for costing them a defeat was a quietly administered benching only to start the game against Arizona. He played extensively in the game, anyway.

The belief had been that the Bears team culture was strong but that incident helped cause crumbling and destruction.

"When we talk about culture–I have a strong belief in this–I believe that culture is people," Poles said. "You all spend time with them (the players), there is a really good locker room in there with really good guys. I think there are some foundational things you need to address from the beginning to hold the standard throughout the entire year.

"I believe when you go through struggles some of those things get difficult. Guys are struggling with being down and losing games. That is some of the things that we saw. Any team needs a certain standard and measurements of how we are going to do things because at some point in the season you are going to have adversity. Your house is going to be shaking and your foundation will be tested. At that point you have to go look at the root cause. Did we do everything we were supposed to in terms of detailing everything we needed to? If you didn’t it’s a little bit off. If you looked at the outcome and winning more than the process and doing those things, then those things bubble up."

They bubbled up all right. It became a bubbling cesspool.

Poles saw lack of competitive poise as a result of their crumbling foundation, especially in goal line or short yardage when they were committing penalties.

"I think some of the competitive poise popped up in terms of doing what we need to do and being disciplined to get over the hump," he said.

Offsides, false starts and other problems had surfaced during training camp and never seemed to get addressed. Players have all been adamant about this.

"I think I mentioned it before, we just talked about discipline, we had some mistakes, pre-snap penalties," Pole said. "A couple don’t-jump situations in two-minute drills–some of them showed up in practice and it was addressed. But we coule have done more, pushed more to make sure they don’t show up on game day."

Williams taking a league-high and Bears record 68 sacks was always an issue.

“O-line wise the frustrating piece of that is that it was hard to really identify–I will say it this way, it wasn’t one reason," Pole said. "It wasn’t always the offensive line, it wasn’t always the quarterback, it wasn’t always the running back in protection. There are a lot of factors in there to look into. I think all were involved. It’s a place we need to improve as we move forward."

Possibly the scariest comment made by Poles came near the end of his press conference when he talked about Eberflus and the foundation eventually crumbling.

"I think to say it wasn’t all there, that he (Eberflus) didn’t do what he was supposed to do would be false," Poles said. "I think it can be done stronger and more consistently to make sure some of the things don’t pop up later.”

It was enough to create concern the same thing could happen again unless Poles suddenly shows an abiltity he hasn't displayed before and that's to pick a good head coach out of a bunch. Apparently Bears president Kevin Warren believes in his GM, though.

"Again I trust Ryan, I trust the process that he has put together. I'm confident that it will yield positive results," Warren said.

More Bears News

X: BearsOnSI

Published
Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.