Chicago Bears: While Poles did well in offseason, his job is not done

Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles did a great job overhauling the roster. However, his job still is not finished just yet.

No matter what happens in the 2023 season, the Chicago Bears have certainly had an impactful offseason. General manager Ryan Poles had the number one overall pick in the draft and had the most amount of salary cap space.

Poles ended up trading the top pick for a bundle of other picks and wide receiver D.J. Moore. He then went out and added toughness, speed, and athleticism to the roster through the draft.

Poles also hit free agency hard. He did it with incredible discipline, however. He could have made a splash and gotten some star players. That would have required him to overspend for some of them, though.

Poles avoided doing that and added more than a dozen free agents to the roster. He made the team young, tough, and athletic and filled a lot of holes.

Through both phases of the offseason, Poles did a good job of giving quarterback Justin Fields the tools to succeed as a passer and trying to get the defense back to the Monsters of the Midway unit we are used to seeing.

Poles did his job of adding the players head coach Matt Eberflus and his staff wanted to coach. Now it is the staff’s turn to help the players, right?

Well, not so fast. Poles’ job is not done just yet. There is still a glaring hole on defense that he has to fill — defensive end.

The Chicago Bears ranked last in sacks and quarterback hits last season. To show how bad the pass rush was, Jaquan Brisker had the most sacks on the team with just four. We are talking about a safety leading the team in that category and one who missed two games.

Poles did not do much to solidify the spot. He had Dominique Robinson, a player who was supposed to be a project but surprised many with his play. Additionally, there is Trevis Gipson. Gipson showed some promise as a pass rusher but had a down season in 2022.

Poles went out and signed veteran DeMarcus Walker. Many thought that there was still a glaring need for a pass rusher. He also signed defensive tackles Rasheem Green and Andrew Billings. The thought was that Poles would address that with one of his 10 picks.

He did not do that, however. He focused his attention on the defensive tackle spot (drafting three of them) and secondary (also selecting three). He also added  For most, that was a head-scratcher.

Poles might be gambling that shoring up the defensive tackle spot will help the pass rush. If the guys in the middle are grabbing attention with double teams then the edge rushers will see a lot more one-on-ones and they should be able to take advantage of that.

Still, it would be really great to see at least one more impactful edge rusher signed. Even at this point of the offseason, there are still options.

Thanks to Poles’ discipline, he could go after and sign whoever he feels is a good fit. He has about $31 million in effective salary cap space, which still is tops in the league. That amount is more than $11 million more than the next team, the Carolina Panthers.

There are some players Poles could sign via free agency. Leonard Floyd (who was originally with the Bears) and Yannick Ngakoue can sign multi-year deals and help. There are also some older veterans like  Justin Houston, Melvin Ingram, and Robert Quinn (also a former Bears) who could come in and help some of the younger guys. They can sign one-year deals, do their jobs on and off the field, and then leave the unit better than it was when they started.

Many expect Poles to make that last move. He said he is aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the roster and likely has a plan to make improvements. As we know, once Poles has a plan, he sticks to it no matter what happens.