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The Chicago Bears have their new general manager. Ryan Poles is the new head football man at Halas Hall.
After interviewing 13 candidates, Chicago Bears chairman George McCaskey determined Poles will be the one to turn the Bears into Super Bowl contenders.
Whether he pulls that off, remains to be seen.
Poles’ hiring is making franchise history as he is the first minority general manager for the Bears.
The Chicago Bears go to the Kansas City Chiefs again for a front office head…
He comes to the Chicago Bears after spending his entire front office career with the Kansas City Chiefs. This is the third time Bears ownership has tabbed someone from the Chiefs to be their main football authority.
Mark Hatley never had the official general manager title but everything he did met the description of general manager duties–although he could not fire the head coach. Hatley did draft Brian Urlacher but the Bears won just 19 games in his four seasons.
A decade later Phil Emery arrived.
He was the general manager who fired Lovie Smith after a 10-6 season in 2012, hired Marc Trestman over Bruce Arians, and thought it was a great idea to make Jay Cutler the highest-paid quarterback in the NFL. Emery put together some of the worst Bears’ defenses in franchise history. His draft record, outside of Kyle Long and Kyle Fuller, set the franchise back multiple years.
Guess who happened to train Poles in Kansas City? That’s right, it was Emery.
Parallels to Ryan Pace
Poles is 36 years old. Ironically, he is replacing Ryan Pace, who was 37 when Chicago McCaskey tabbed Pace to replace Emery as the general manager in 2015. Pace also only worked for one organization-the New Orleans Saints-before getting the Bears’ top job.
Bill Polian helped the Bears this go around to help find Poles much like when Ernie Accorsi was asked to aid in hiring Pace.
It sure feels like the Bears are doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. That happens to be one definition for insanity.