Former Chicago Bears head coach Matt Eberflus received the bulk of the blame for the team’s shortcomings in the 2024 season.
However, an NFL executive thinks general manager Ryan Poles’ roster construction is more to blame for the team’s 5-12 season than anything Eberflus (or interim head coach Thomas Brown) did by mismanaging the team with late in-game decisions.
It’s the league’s “Black Monday,” and Poles remains the GM of the Bears as the team looks for its next head coach. He doesn’t appear to be going anywhere after building a culture that has won 15 games in three seasons.
Ryan Poles’ roster construction didn’t help Matt Eberflus
In his column on Monday, Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune quoted an NFL executive who thinks Poles put Eberflus in a poor position to succeed.
“You have to make sure the vision of the team is going to be able to perform the way the head coach wants it to,” the executive said. “I don’t know how much Matt Eberflus was in on those decisions in the past two years but obviously the makeup of the roster did not put him in a position to succeed. It’s hard. It’s very hard because coaches are more typically focused on now and the role of the personnel department is to be focused on now but also the future.”
The Chicago Bears are built “inside-out”
The executive blasted Poles for how he built the roster “inside-out,” preferring to add help at wide receiver, linebacker, and the secondary before making sure the trenches were sustainable.
“When you look at the roster, it seems like the Bears have almost done it in reverse,” the executive said. “They’re not building inside-out. They built outside-in and that’s not typically the way you do it. Because you need the offensive line to support the quarterback and receivers can perform as rookies a lot better than offensive linemen. That’s why you draft offensive linemen first because it takes them longer to acclimate to the NFL and then you plug in the receivers. That’s when you start clicking.
“How many teams in the NFL right now are desperate for three or more offensive linemen? Probably 75%. You can’t just say we’re going to draft offensive linemen 1, 2 and 3 because those guys are going to take a year — minimum — to become whatever you see them becoming in the scouting process. That means next year is going to be a struggle for the quarterback, who is already struggling.”
The executive is curious about what Poles’ vision looks like for the offensive line. It’ll be nearly impossible for Chicago to draft three starters in April. Poles hasn’t had much success in adding offensive linemen in previous offseasons, and there’s no reason to think the Bears will do better in free agency or via trade in 2025.
One has to wonder what would happen should an offensive mind like Ben Johnson take the Bears’ job with the offensive line being a mess. Johnson has had the benefit of working with one of the league’s best offensive lines, not to mention explosive weapons at running back and receiver.
The Bears don’t have that. And in the offseason No. 4 for Poles, Chicago isn’t anywhere near that.
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