In 2017, GM Ryan Pace was railroaded for what many felt was a lack of a true open scouting process for the upcoming quarterback class. Many inside Halas Hall felt he decided to draft Mitch Trubisky early, not allowing scouts or coaches a greater say in the matter. Patrick Mahomes was another option they liked, but Pace didn't seem interested in delving deeper. Worse still, they didn't even bother meeting with Deshaun Watson. We all know what happened. Trubisky floundered after some early promise, while Mahomes became a superstar and Watson went to Pro Bowls. It was hoped Ryan Poles wouldn't make that same mistake when he got his chance.
If the new report from Tyler Dunne of Go Long is to be believed, history repeated itself. Chicago held the #1 overall pick in the 2024 draft. Most people expected Caleb Williams to be the pick. It panned out that way. What nobody knew at the time, according to Dunne, is that Poles essentially rigged the process. Not only did he elevate Williams during film sessions, but he also downplayed the other top quarterbacks.
The Chicago Bears general manager, it appeared, was implanting the worst possible first impression he could inside the minds of his personnel men.
It wasn’t pretty. Under constant duress, he completed less than half of his passes vs. Clemson. He ran for his life vs. Miami.
Clicker in hand, at the center of the room, Poles repeatedly hit rewind on errant passes and it didn’t take long for those echoes of “Geez!” to turn into outright laughter...
...“They made fun of him,” says one Bears scout in the room. “They laughed. The GM laughed Drake Maye off the screen, and cut the tape off.”
Drake Maye and Jayden Daniels never had a chance.
Not once, sources in the room say, did Poles open up the floor to ask a simple question: Who’s a better quarterback: Caleb Williams or Jayden Daniels? “Jayden Daniels was clearly — clearly — a better quarterback,” says one scout. “If he didn’t want to go with Drake Maye, Jayden Daniels was clearly a better quarterback to anyone with an eye.”
People inside the building weren't naive. They recognized what Poles was doing, and knew it threatened to cripple the evaluation of the most important draft pick in Bears history.
“The quarterback process? I would not even call it a process,” says one scout in the room. “The Caleb Williams draft pick was the most embarrassing lack of a process — a fair, impartial process to scouting — that I’ve ever seen in my life. There wasn’t any type of actual comparison on a fair slate to which quarterback is actually better.
“They had it all lined up. It was a rigged trial.”
Ryan Poles went in with his mind made up.
That is an incredibly shortsighted decision. Now, sometimes, it makes sense because there is only one clear quarterback option. Such was not the case last year. Three guys had the talent, production, and pedigree to become NFL stars. Even if you have your heart set on Williams, you still must do right by the organization and give the other guys a fair shake. Ryan Poles didn't do that. He wanted Williams and didn't want anybody else getting in his way. If the report is accurate, he set about guiding the front office towards his line of thinking.
It worked. The Bears took Williams. What followed was a disaster of a rookie season, categorized by countless sacks, bad body language, and immediate questions about his ability to play the position as a professional. Daniels went to the NFC championship, and Maye had an efficient first year.
Yet what stands out about this isn't that Poles fell in love with Williams and would not be swayed. It might've been motivated by fear.
“If I don’t take him, the media will kill me.”
Poles reportedly said that in December of 2023, as it became clear the Bears would get the #1 overall pick. Not a great thing for a GM to say, even behind closed doors.
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