The
Chicago Bears reached out to several established football voices to help in their search for a new GM. Bill Polian was the most prominent and most involved of those names, but he wasn't the only one. Hall of Fame head coach Tony Dungy was another valued part of the process. He helped George McCaskey and his search team identify multiple candidates for GM and head coach spots. It didn't take him long to recognize how strong of a candidate Ryan Poles was like everybody else.
The Kansas City Chiefs director of player personnel was already a hot candidate by that point. He was a finalist for the Carolina GM job in 2020 and was again for the New York Giants and Minnesota Vikings before meeting with the Bears. After doing research, Dungy knew this was somebody the Bears had to meet. When McCaskey got that opportunity, the rest was history. The team chairman took charge of the process personally and made sure Poles didn't leave Halas Hall after his second interview. For Dungy, it was a satisfying
moment.
As he explained on the Under Center podcast, Bears fans should expect big things ahead.
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Now people might roll their eyes hearing this. Dungy was a head coach in the NFL. He can't possibly know what makes a good or bad GM. Except that is ignoring the relationships the man built during his long career. He worked with guys like Art Rooney Jr. in Pittsburgh, Carl Peterson in Kansas City, Jeff Diamond in Minnesota, Rich McKay in Tampa Bay, and Polian in Indianapolis. All were men that had a staggering amount of success as GMs or defacto GMs in the league.
Rooney helped build four Super Bowl winners in the 1970s. Peterson and Diamond built multiple playoff contenders in the 1990s. McKay was the architect of the Buccaneers' 2002 Super Bowl champions, and Polian won a Lombardi trophy with Dungy in 2006. Keep this in mind when wondering if the man is just paying lip service to the Bears about Ryan Poles. He has seen what the good ones look like.
