This is a deeper dive on the draft trends and results of Chicago’s current GM
Ryan Poles made 21 draft selections in his first two years as general manager of the Chicago Bears, a fact which seems remarkable given that the prior GM had already traded away three picks from these two drafts before Poles ever took the job–not to mention the fact that Poles himself traded away 2023’s 32nd overall pick for Chase Claypool. In fact, Poles has made 34 selections in his four drafts as a general manager–more than 8 per class on average–despite his tendency to trade selections for active players somewhat frequently.
So Poles is making plenty of draft picks. How “good” is he, though, compared to the rest of the league, at actually finding quality players?
To be clear, the goal of this piece is not to determine if Poles has built a strong football team. Nor is it to go over the various trades he has made. Instead, the goal is simply to evaluate whether or not Poles has any particular strengths or weaknesses in terms of drafting talent when compared to available reference points.
Much of this piece will use the historical markers defined by The Draft Research Project, and so in that way this is a more expansive and comprehensive piece than my earlier midterm review of the 2022 draft class. However, this article will be looking for patterns in Poles’ decision-making across his early tenure.
In an attempt to be as thorough as possible, this article will broadly group selections as clear misses, questionable selections, potential hits, objective successes, and exceptional performers. It will note whether or not individual players have the potential to move between those categories. While it is exceptionally premature to evaluate the 2024 draft class, the five selections he made there will be referenced for context and to complete the picture of the Bears’ draft history during the entirety of the Poles-Eberflus partnership. Finally, a few general implications will be discussed.
Clear Misses
Travis Bell (DL) and Kendall Williamson (S) have both performed below the median level that would be expected of a 7th-round pick at their positions, and neither of them ever played for Chicago. Bell has not played since 2023, and Williamson has only played 19 snaps after being elevated from the Chargers’ practice squad (he is currently on a reserve/future contract). If Trestan Ebner (RB) could prorate his performance from his first three years across the next two, he would still be below the median performance for his position in the sixth round; however, even that is unlikely as he currently isn’t on a roster. Trenton Gill, the first punter Poles drafted in his first three years as a GM, is also not on a roster.
Photo by Nick Cammett/Diamond Images via Getty Images
If nothing changes, these four players will be out of the league in under two years. That’s a rate of 19%, almost exactly the 18% rate suggested by the Draft Research Project for the league as a whole.
Then there are players who still might make performance markers for themselves, even if when they do so they will be on other teams.
If Velus Jones were to match his three-year production totals in both starts and yards from scrimmage in each of the next two years, he would still be short of the median production for a 3rd-round receiver.
Ja’Tyre Carter could end up being median-level offensive linemen for his draft status (or better), because he only needs to appear in two more games over the next two years. However, he has not played since 2023 and he is no longer with Chicago.
Finally, Zachary Thomas is on his fourth team, and while he has taken nearly 500 total snaps (with only a third of those on special teams), none of those snaps were for Chicago. He is, however, on an active contract with the Texans and needs only five starts in the next two years in order to be a median 6th-round offensive lineman. That’s not out of the question, but any such success will be for the player and not the team that drafted him.
This means that a third of the draft picks made by Ryan Poles in his first two years are misses for Chicago, but that most of these misses are “typical” in terms of what happens in the draft.
Questionable Selections
Zacch Pickens was taken in the third round, where the median defensive lineman should be expected to provide 58 games, 18 starts, and 18 defensive victories over the course of his first five years. Pickens has only appeared in 26 games with 3 starts and has 4.5 “defensive victory on downs”, or DVDs. Just to be middle-of-the-road, in each of his next three years, Pickens needs to average 11 games, 5 starts, and 3.5 DVDs. The games total is within reach, but the starts seem unlikely on a team that just paid top money for a free agent interior defensive lineman while also spending two higher draft picks on interior defensive linemen. Pickens is at best fourth in the priority line, and that doesn’t include Chris Williams (resigned to a $3mil contract), Andrew Billings, or Jonathan Ford.
Noah Sewell has yet to start a game or record a defensive victory in his 22 professional appearances. The median 5th-round linebacker should appear in 47 games with 7 starts and 8 DVDs across five years. Sewell does have a chance at both meeting the games and the start totals, as the linebacker position is not well-stocked ahead of him. However, he would need to take a significant step forward in the next year or so to have that chance, because he is failing to impact plays.
Tyler Scott has played in 28 games while only making 4 starts, recording only 214 yards from scrimmage; 209 of those yards came in his rookie season. Just to be “typical” for a 4th-round receiver in playing time, he needs to have two more starts in the next three years. He was given perfectly normal chances, especially in his first year. However, he is 257 yards shy of median production. To put it another way, a typical fourth-round pick at receiver manages about 17 yards per game appearance, whereas Scott is managing a little less than half of that. On the one hand, that means he’s probably only one catch per game behind typical. On the other hand, he is unlikely to keep getting balls in a crowded receiver room, and his best chances are probably to end up on another team with less competition.
Doug Kramer has already played in 18 games in two years, suggesting that he might very well exceed the 22 games in five years typical of 6th-round offensive linemen. However, he has yet to start, and the team has needed to continue churning draft picks and draft trades at his position since he was drafted (more than enough to double up all of the interior line positions ahead of him). Worse, the two years he has been on the team, the Bears have been among the worst in the league at his position–this suggests that even when he’s playing, he’s not playing well. SIS backs this up, indicating that he has blown more than 7% of the blocks he has attempted.
Potential Hits
Roschon Johnson was taken in the fourth round of the 2023 NFL draft. Along with Scott, he was one of the favorites of the staff and of fans who commented on that draft two years ago. The average for 4th-round running backs is 9.5 starts in 45 games and post 1478 yards from scrimmage in their first five years. Those numbers are tilted heavily by a few top performers, so a more fair point of comparison is likely the 5 starts and 1140 yards from scrimmage that would represent the median running back taken in the fourth round. Johnson already has 29 games and 815 yards, so if he simply plays at the “rotational player” level he has established for himself, he should end up with a surplus of games and yards. He has yet to start, however, and D’Andre Swift is still ahead of him with Kyle Monangai showing promise in camp. Still, it looks good for “RoJo” to be at least a competent selection at his position even if it’s not guaranteed at this point.
Gervon Dexter has started 16 games and played in 32 of them. He has been credited with 14.5 plays that would count as a defensive victory on the down. If he could maintain these levels of performance, he would have 80 games, 40 starts, and 36 DVDs in his first five years. That would place him comfortably in the top half of interior defensive linemen drafted in the second round, but not in the top quartile. Can he maintain this pace, though? Grady Jarrett is ahead of him and Chicago just drafted Shemar Turner. As mentioned when discussing Pickens, the interior of the line has a number of rotational players, and so unless Dexter steps up, he could find his playing time challenged. Still, he is likely to be a contributor at roughly the level found for his draft position.
Objective Successes
Dominique Robinson gets a lot of grief from some fans, with a number of them hoping he gets cut. If critics got their way and Robinson were cut today to never play football again, he would have already outperformed the median fifth-round edge rusher. He has more games played (34 vs 30), more starts (8 vs 3), and more disruptive plays (8 vs 6.5). Anything he does from this point forward is “extra”, and he could well find himself in the next tier if Dennis Allen unlocks more or his potential.
Elijah Hicks was taken in the seventh round three years ago and has already played in more games with more starts than the typical seventh-round safety might in five years, and he already has just as many DVDs as he would be expected to have in that time.
If Terell Smith simply shows up for seven more games, he has met or exceeded the performance standard set by the median fifth-round cornerback, and his 14 DVDs in two years show how much more disruptive he is than the typical player with his draft status (5 DVDs). His rate is also exceptional, with a DVD in every other game when one in every seven games would be more typical.
Darnell Wright was drafted 10th overall in 2023, and he has been one of the few bright spots on a shaky offensive line. He already has 33 starts and is on a path to be an anchor at right tackle for his career. However, that is in fact simply the correct level of performance for a player taken in the top ten. He was taken with a premium pick and is playing a premium position at a solid and reliable level. It’s hard to do better than expectations when taken this high.
Photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images
Exceptional Performers
Kyler Gordon has played in 42 games and started 34 of them, with 27.5 defensive victories. He is on pace to be a median-level first-round corner despite having been taken in the second round. If 2025 simply repeats his performance from either of the last two years, then he will match or exceed median performance levels for his draft position a year ahead of schedule.
Jaquan Brisker has only played in 35 games, but he has 30 defensive victories. If his next two years have the same level of playing time and performance as the average of the last three, then despite the perception that he misses too much time, he will have played in as many games as the typical second-round safety while also having more starts and significantly more disruptive plays. His concussion issues could hold him back, but football players miss time to injury.
Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images
Braxton Jones is currently locked in a battle for the left tackle position, but by locking down the starting position for the last 40 games he has been healthy for, he has already far exceeded his draft position. Had his injury last season been career-ending, he would have been in the top quartile of 5th-round offensive linemen and the top third of all offensive tackles drafted in the 10-year span considered.
Tyrique Stevenson was drafted a year after the prior two defensive backs, but in his 32 games and 30 starts he has already recorded 30 defensive victories. If he maintains that level of performance across his next three years, he would be as disruptive as the top ten percent of all corners drafted in the first round who were studied by the Draft Research Project. If he has another season that is simply the average of his first two, and then simply takes a snap a game for the first half of 2026, he will have exceeded the median production of his draft position (and he is already above the median for his draft position in interceptions and needs a single pass defense to match the median there).
Implications
Ryan Poles has been excellent at drafting defensive backs early in his tenure, but it is also possible that he does his best work simply when letting talent fall to him in the second round–and that, at least in his first two years, that talent has been at defensive back. By contrast, with the exception of a defensive back (Hicks), he has had consistently below-average performance in the last two rounds of the draft.
While it is far too early to evaluate 2024, it’s worth noting that Caleb Williams recorded a 95.2 passer rating in the second half of the season and Rome Odunze picked up 749 yards from scrimmage (with 12 starts and 3 touchdowns). As ridiculous as projecting either player is at this point, Williams has hit the requisite markers to date to suggest he will be a successful quarterback in the NFL and if Odunze were to have 3,745 yards and 15 touchdowns he would essentially be a median first-round receiver (slightly higher in yards and slightly lower in touchdowns).
Likewise worth noting is that drafting Kiran Amegadjie in 2024, followed by Ozzy Trapilo and Luke Newman in 2025, means that, excluding trades, Poles has invested an average of two draft picks per year in the offensive line. Almost exactly a quarter of his draft picks have gone to this position group.
All of this suggests that Poles has no special strength in the first round of the draft and that his virtues might best be described as a willingness to invest consistently in positions while also being able to take advantage of the way the board falls. It is worth pointing out that his “failures” seem concentrated at the end of the draft, where players tend to be marginal contributors anyway. By contrast, his clear successes seem to be characterized by finding overachievers in the second round and, weirdly, the fifth round. The second round is one of the most important areas of the draft in terms of long-term team-building. This could be encouraging when it comes to the potential of players like Burden, Trapilo, or Turner.
The extent to which these patterns will hold remains to be seen, of course.