Bear Digest

What Ryan Poles likes most about his solution on line of scrimmage

Bringing in successful veterans in free agency not only revamped the Bears offensive and defensive line talent pools but GM Ryan Poles saw some other benefits.

Gene Chamberlain

Grady Jarrett (left) and Joe Thuney were part of the Ryan Poles plan for two reasons, as he described at the owners meetings.
Grady Jarrett (left) and Joe Thuney were part of the Ryan Poles plan for two reasons, as he described at the owners meetings. / Bears On SI Photo: Gene Chamberlain
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It's ideal to solve one problem with moves in free agency or the trade route, yet the Bears seem to have addressed two issues with moves they made along the offensive and defensive lines in the view of GM Ryan Poles.

When it's understood they finally got serious about fixing problems on the line of scrimmage in this efficient manner, it only increases the chances they'll move forward this time on offense and defense instead of floundering the way they have so often in the past when they tried to address their issues.

By signing defensive tackle Grady Jarrett and trading for guard Joe Thuney—and to an extent also for Jonah Jackson—the Bears have upped the amount of leadership they'll have on both sides of the football immensely.

It was the type of thing they could have used more of last year, when the fateful 10-game losing streak began.

It was apparent at the owners meetings how much Grady can mean simply by something Falcons coach Raheem Morris told Atlanta reporters. The Falcons were actually negotiating to keep him before they ran out of time and money.

In most free agency instances, players who leave are allowed to go into the marketplace and there is no real attempt to keep them due to the money issues. It wasn't the case with Jarrett, who the Falcons still saw as valuable.

"That was one of the tougher decisions that went on through the offseason," Morris said. "When you talk about how you make all of these things meet. We talked about how you fit it within the cap. What your structures are and how you want to have a person fit in, we just couldn't come to an agreement.

"That's what went into those things. All those decisions, all those things happen. And that was very tough."

A veteran with real leadership qualities can step up and challenge players to solve problems themselves rather than waiting on a coaching staff without answers or accountability, like the Bears faced last year.

Now, with Thuney and Jarrett,  they can feel more confident in their ability to handle adverse circumstances like all teams encounter in a season. It makes it so much more apparent why they decided to rely on free agency to solve their issues rather than wait on a young draft pick to develop.

"The beautiful thing with our setup now, especially the way the trades and free agency worked out when you have a guy like Joe in the building, he's done it for a long time," Bears GM Ryan Poles told reporters at the owners meetings. "We have someone like Grady Jarrett. He's done it for a long time. That is an added bonus bringing those guys in because they can show (others) how to do it.

"And I always think it's important that in order to do that and lead you also have to be taking care of business on the field (yourself) and still be productive, because I've seen situations where there's older guys who aren't really in their prime. They're almost in survival mode just trying to finish out their career and it just doesn't hold as much weight. So when there's guys that are actually playing at a high level and they've won a bunch of games and they're addressing certain things, I think it's just weighted heavier and the guys will follow and will listen to that."

Who did they have to follow on the offensive line last year in this respect?

Teven Jenkins, a fourth-year player who has been in and out of the lineup regularly with injuries throughout his career, or center Coleman Shelton in his second year of starting. On the defensive line, once Andrew Billings suffered a season-ending injury they had no one who supplied that type of experienced leadership at tackle. Gervon Dexter was only in his second year and the other spots were filled by either young players or journeyman types acquired either in lower-level trades or from the waiver wire scrap heap.

The other way they feel they've solved line issues is, of course, the talent and how it meshes with what their scheme plans are.

On defense, in particular, this is critical.

The Bears are no longer the gap-attacking defense they were under Matt Eberflus and they're definitely not the 3-4 two-gap team they were when Sean Desai was coordinator under Matt Nagy. They're doing something different and it's something they believe Jarrett can do well. It's actually something Dexter could do better, as well, and that's attack the blocker. They're not going to be simply occupying blockers and stringing things along like in two-gap, or getting into a gap and driving upfield like under Eberflus under Dennis Allen.

"He wants a very aggressive, attacking defense, especially the defensive line attacking the man in front of you, not so much playing laterally two-gapping or even penetrating in gaps," Poles said of Allen. "It's really just attacking the offensive lineman in front of you and creating disruption in the run game and also to bubble back into the quarterback's feet to make it uncomfortable for the quarterback, too.

"So that mentality is definitely going to be there. That's something that will get done and we have ... done it in free agency as well."

Thuney has played on offensive lines utilizing zone and gap schemes and doing it well enough that he owns four rings. Jarrett and Thuney both will be 32 years old when the season begins.

They don't see this like bringing in 35-year-old Riley Reiff at tackle at the end of his career or the way the previous regime did with Josh Sitton or 39-year-old Jason Peters.  

It's more about successful experience and continued success as fits for what they're doing rather than old guys who have played well in the past but with small upside for the coming season.

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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.