One of the biggest surprises of the offseason came 24 hours after it began for the Chicago Bears. Team chairman George McCaskey stepped in front of the cameras and revealed he and four other people would lead the search for the next GM and head coach. The man who would take primary charge of that process was Hall of Fame executive Bill Polian. Somebody the McCaskeys have long respected.
The 79-year old was brought in around late November or early December to assess two things. The state of the Bears roster and whether changes were needed at the top. After a thorough month-long evaluation, Polian reached his conclusions. First, GM Ryan Pace and head coach Matt Nagy had to go. Despite their best efforts, the organization wasn't where it needed to be because of them. The former exec was slightly more optimistic when it came to the roster. He told Waddle & Silvy of ESPN 1000 what his conclusion was.
“There’s a lot of work to be done,” he said. “The general consensus is that the Bears have 6-9 blue-chippers on this team. That’s not enough. You need 10-12 to be in the hunt. Ryan has a task in front of him to add those kinds of players. There is no question about that. That means it’s not going to happen overnight.”
An interesting assessment for sure.
Essentially Polian believes the Bears are about 3-4 really good players away from competing for a championship. It would've been great to hear which players he felt were in that category. An educated guess says Roquan Smith, Khalil Mack, Robert Quinn, Akiem Hicks, Jaylon Johnson, Darnell Mooney, and David Montgomery. It probably doesn't help that Hicks is a free agent while Quinn and Mack are in their 30s. So yeah, Ryan Poles has work to do. The more interesting comments from Polian came when the subject of Justin Fields arose. It isn't a secret the young quarterback is viewed as a vital part of the Bears' future. The former GM has his own vision for what a quarterback should be. This is the same man who signed Jim Kelly and drafted Peyton Manning. It sounds like Polian believes the young man has plenty of promise and plenty of work to do.“You look at what Justin has going for him, which is a remarkable arm, great mobility, good size (6-3, 228), good ability to run the ball,” Polian said. “Highly combative (competitive) guy. “Also, Justin has a lot of work to do to develop into a first-rate NFL QB. It takes four years for a rookie QB to come in and learn the job and be able to compete at the highest level in the NFL. That’s just a fact. It took Peyton Manning four years, and he had more tools to work with than most people.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAatAKEQZx4&ab_channel=ESPNChicago







