Ryan Poles exclusive: Bears GM explains key draft priorities and getting balance right

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The Chicago Bears and GM Ryan Poles have been busy this offseason, making key moves via trade and free agency to strengthen both sides of the ball.

They bolstered their interior offensive line with the additions of Joe Thuney, Jonah Jackson and Drew Dalman, while the acquisitions of Grady Jarrett and Dayo Odeyingbo reinforced their defensive front.

Now, Poles’ focus will shift towards the draft, where the Bears hold seven total picks — including three in the first two rounds.

On the latest episode of The Athletic’s dedicated Bears podcast “Hoge & Jahns,” Adam Hoge and Adam Jahns sat down with Poles for an exclusive conversation at the NFL’s league annual meeting in Palm Beach to discuss how the team approaches draft evaluations leading up to April 24 in Green Bay. Watch the full discussion below.

A partial transcript has been edited for clarity and length. The full episode is available on YouTube below or in the “Hoge & Jahns” feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. 

Jahns: You worked with different coaches, different coordinators, and different GMs in Kansas City … and now Ben’s taking over in Chicago. How much do draft evaluations change from coach to coach, or coordinator to coordinator? Just in terms of the scheme fit and what they look for. Are there certain traits that carry weight across the board?

Poles: Part of being a general manager is evaluating the evaluators. You have to understand how everybody sees the game. That part’s really important, and fortunately for us, DA (Dennis Allen, defensive coordinator), Ben (Johnson, head coach), and Declan (Doyle, offensive coordinator) are all very good evaluators. I love their processes and how they communicate. The communication aspect of what they’re looking for to fit the style of play, philosophy and the scheme that we have is important. We work through that and talk about it all the time, in terms of what we want to be and what our identity needs to be on top of the scheme. When all of that comes together and you find players that check all those boxes, you feel even more convicted to be aggressive to get a player in.

Jahns: Will one coach say, “I’ve got to have guys with long arms,” or “I’ve got to have a guy that runs the 40-yard dash in this time.” Does it get that specific sometimes?

Poles: It gets very specific, and then it’s my job to say, “OK, if you can’t have all of them, which ones do you need? Let’s prioritize them and then look at it that way.” Because there’s not a lot of guys falling off of trees that are really fast, really big and really long. There are deficiencies and sometimes even struggles we have to develop, or maybe physically, they don’t have every measurable that we need. But what’s the critical one they must have to be successful? We work through those conversations all the time.

Jahns: We got this question from Kevin Fishbain (Bears beat writer), he wants to know what your arm length was coming out of the draft. … Do you remember (laughs)?

Poles: I think it was 33 inches and three-quarters.

Hoge: Is that the cut-off then … your arm length (laughs)? Along the lines of what we’re talking about here, Ben shared a story with me yesterday about you guys watching Tyler Warren (Penn State tight end) together. And I always find that collaboration interesting because you’re watching an offensive guy, so you probably want the opinions of your offensive staff. But actually, its Dennis Allen who speaks up and was like, “Man, that guy would be a nightmare to game plan for.”

Poles: Yeah, that was a new process that I wanted to trial, and it’s something we’ll do every year. To sit down with all of the coordinators in the room and watch tape, because I also want to hear from the opposite side of the ball about the challenges that player would bring. What do you need to be aware of? How are you going to adapt to this player being on the field? It just gives us some really good perspective and brings some really good conversations up. In that instance, just having someone who can align in so many different places and have a skill set that makes the defense feel uncomfortable is important. That was a good example of evaluating those guys by hearing from both sides of the ball.

Hoge: I’m sure our listeners would love for me to just ask you straight up about Ashton Jeanty (Boise State running back), but I know you’re not going to go into too many specifics. But if everybody seems to think this is a really deep running back class, how does that perhaps impact the likelihood of you to think, “This guy might be elite at the position” versus “We know there’s a lot of other options later on in the draft?”

Poles: That’s where you want to weigh the collection of picks that you have with the combinations that are highly likely for you to put together, and what that will look like for your team. You can get into a funky rotation if maybe you go one direction first, and then the rest of the other positions you think you’re going to get are gone, but there’s a surplus of what you just took still sitting there. It can get a little cloudy. Not that we can’t predict what’s going to be at 10, 39 or 41, we do need to play that game and see what combinations we feel really good about putting together. So it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

You can listen to full episodes of “Hoge & Jahns” for free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and watch on YouTube.

(Photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)

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