Bear Digest

Stain from 2024 Bears Failure Can't Benefit Ryan Poles' Cause

Analysis: It's easy to wonder if Ryan Poles might be in more trouble than some reports suggest when the team's record and his personnel acquisition are taken into account.

Gene Chamberlain

Bears president Kevin Warren has voiced his support for Ryan Poles and insiders say he'll stay on as GM but there are reasons to wonder.
Bears president Kevin Warren has voiced his support for Ryan Poles and insiders say he'll stay on as GM but there are reasons to wonder. / Daniel Bartel-Imagn Images
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Jaylon Johnson wasn't giving up the ship, whether it's for making the Pro Bowl or winning a game over Green Bay for the first time.

This has to please many at Halas Hall.

"I'm always hopeful, yeah," Johnson said Wednesday about the Pro Bowl, "but I wouldn't be surprised if it don't work out."

There are good reasons to expect it won't.

The Bears had no one in the top 10 for Pro Bowl voting at their position in fan voting and that's a full third of the voting. The coaches and players make up two-thirds of the electoral process, but Johnson had to be honest about his season.

"It's been solid," Johnson said. "It's hard with limited targets. I'm looking at the whole body of work. It's hard to make plays on the ball when you barely get targeted."

According to Stathead/Pro Football Reference, Johnson has been targeted just 52 times this season in 16 games. That's 27 times less than Tyrique Stevenson and Stevenson missed a game and two starts

"Just with that itself, that’s what gets you the Pro Bowl votes: making plays, having those interceptions and numbers and things like that," Johnson said. "But I feel like overall I played solid. Definitely could’ve done some things better, but I did a lot of good, too.”

The bigger issue here is no other Bears made it.

Last year when Johnson made it, Montez Sweat also did. This was based, in part, on Sweat's work for Washington with 6 1/2 sacks. He had six with the Bears in nine games.

Those are the only two Pro Bowl berths earned by Bears since Ryan Poles became their GM.

They had no one in his first season, 2022. Johnson was drafted by Ryan Pace and Sweat was drafted by Washington.

This slow start in terms of Pro Bowl players somewhat mirrors the start to Pace's time with the Bears. In his first three years, running back Jordan Howard was the only player Pace drafted to make the Pro Bowl. Kyle Long and Martellus Bennett made it and had been drafted by previous GM Phil Emery. Long made it twice. The only other player to make it was Josh Sitton, the former Packer Pace signed as a free agent.

This isn't quite like the great Bears Pro Bowl drought of 1994-98 when not one single Bears player made it, a streak broken when return man Glyn Milburn made it after the 1999 season. Pace's drought for Pro Bowl talent ended in a big way in his fourth season, when eight Bears made it following the 2018 run to the division title.

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Now the Bears are back to being less than impactful in the league.

They have four wins going to Green Bay for the finale and the other three NFC North teams are in the playoffs after Poles had said they would "take the North and not give it back." Poles' Bears teams are 0-5 against Green Bay and Matt LaFleur.

The Bears are 14-36 since Poles became GM. His first coaching hire failed and got fired before completing his third season. Sure, the three finalists for that job were handed to Poles by George McCaskey and Bill Polian but Poles made the hire and one finalist he rejected, Dan Quinn, is in the playoffs in his first year as Commanders coach.

There's not a lot of positive coming down here on Poles' side and his contract reportedly expires after next year.

Poles' major accomplishments were the trade back in the draft so he could select Caleb Williams, and the trade for Sweat. Sweat isn't having a great season. Williams is a rookie, a work in progress. However, failing to score early in games and then putting up yards and sometimes points later is becoming an alarming trend. Is it the offense failing or is Williams simply incapable of attacking defenses geared up to do their most to stop the Bears early, before he takes advantage later of softer coverage trying to protect the lead?

With this record taken into account, it is entirely logical to wonder about Poles' future. Various league "insiders," like ESPN's Adam Schefter and SI.com's Albert Breer, have said Poles is safe going forward.

Then we have this from back when Matt Eberflus got fired.

"The next item I want to make sure we are clear about is Ryan Poles is the general manager of the Chicago Bears and he will remain the general manager of the Chicago Bears," president Kevin Warren said. "Ryan is young, he is talented, he is bright, he is hard working, he has done everything in his power on a daily basis to bring a winner to Chicago.

"I am confident in Ryan; my faith remains strong in Ryan."

That's a strong vote of confidence. Has that confidence been shaken enough by four more losses since Eberflus was fired to alter thinking? It's logical to wonder if an 11-game losing streak to go with an earlier 14-game losing streak could be enough to shake confidence.

While Johnson had a talk with media Wednesday he was asked if there's anything to play for Sunday.

"I'm going to try to go out with a bang," Johnson said. "It's the last opponent on the schedule, so I'm looking forward to it."

If they go out and pull off the upset, it's safe to say there will be a lot of relieved decision makers at Halas Hall.

Beating Green Bay tends to make some of the really big problems, like lack of talent, seem less significant even if they aren't.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher 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.