Ryan Poles Slow Start Is a Great Plan
Don’t be fooled by the voices saying the team will be awful because Ryan Poles hasn’t signed any jersey-purchase-worthy players with “all that” Cap Space.
The fact is that Ryan Poles is doing exactly what he said he would do, and it is a very good plan. At his introductory presser, he said he was favoring getting more draft capital over flashier players, and value signings in free agency rather than monster contracts on stars w/big stats.
Don’t lose sight of the fact that Ryan Poles has also made it clear that this is his plan this year! And the reason this is the plan this year is that any other plan is merely a one year plan. Poles wants to win the North every year by spending his resources well every year.
But, he has also admitted quite frankly that he is a bit jealous of the richer GMs, or would be if he wasn’t too busy, patiently implementing his own plan! Clearly, next year will be very different. Yes, Mt Dead Cap will have burned away, we will have a ton of cap space, more draft capital, and we will know which of the “nobodies” are keepers, and how many keepers we can afford to keep. That is a much more stable base from which to begin spending, as opposed to the click-bang-instant-flash, the short cut back to the short-sighted, now-or-never desperation that started this mess.
This team had a legit Championship Window open in 2018 but hitched its entire TE room to Trey Burton. The team has operated in crisis mode from the dawn of that failure (in 2019 training camp) until the end of the regime, just last Jan. At every other opportunity, perhaps more, the team has mortgaged another hunk of the future, but notably less than half those investments have payed any dividends
All of that either makes this a massive re-tool year, or a minor re-build year. That mandates Ryan Poles slow start plan, given the mountain of dead cap and overpaid, underperforming, veteran contracts he inherited–never mind how much of that was the result of bad coaching! A dumpster fire is still job one, because it makes room for laying a new foundation.
Truthfully, this is much like what the Bears did in 2018. Ditched an offense run by a twit, brought in a bunch of “new and different”, and a roster full of nobodies. There were some Kool Aid drinkers, but we had precious few stats to support our claims…en route to an NFC North crown, and the doink, heard, not only ’round the world, but, also, twice.
But, they got that crown, and Exec-O’the Year, and Coach-O’the Year, with a team powered by “Be You”! Of course they followed that with: “Finding Our Identity”, a three year search which turned up nothing beyond conclusive proof that Nagy couldn’t adjust to the fact that the other team showed up.
And now, they’re going to do the same basic thing, but, with a complete new regime coming in with their HITS* principles, and telling us how they’ve “got metrics to measure this stuff”. These aren’t guys who are looking for their identity, they are guys who have an identity they plan to enforce, and that is why all the nobodies.
*If you missed it HITS is Hustle, Intensity, Takeaways ( on Def, Taking care of the ball on Offense!-), and Smart/Situational awareness. And if you missed Al-Quadin Muhammad’s intro presser, let me tell you that *my* takeaway was that once a player gets past the initial culture shock, HITS is a recipe for success.
This is not the year for signing guys who have proven themselves and are looking to cash in for a big payday! It is a year to sign young, hungry, nobodies, with big chips on their shoulders! I’ve seen criticisms of all the short contracts, accusing “Ryan Poles slow start” of kicking the can down the road, but the obvious goal this year should be to develop all they young, hungry, guys, and develop them so well you can’t possibly afford them all.
And of course, that may sound like crazy talk, and it is if we expect it to mean that every last man on the roster will reach his greatest potential in the same season. I believe it is far less crazy to think that a team of inspired “nobodies” could have more than their share of breakout or career best performances. And that seems like the best possible recipe for coming out ahead on the comp pick math. Develop more guys than you can pay.
I know the bottom line for most fans is “Will they be *good* this year?” The only truthful answer is there is no way to tell. The Halas Hall Kool Aid answer is that it is *mathematically bound* to be different:
New Regime
New system with clear measurement metrics
Focus on execution vs trickery
Hungry young Players with chips on shoulders
Easier schedule
Win, lose, or draw, I think the Ryan Poles slow start Bears will be more fun to watch than the Bears we’ve seen for the last three years, so, stay tuned, Bear Down, and pass the Halas Hall KoolAid!
