Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles has been quite active in bolstering his team’s depth on both sides of the ball as of late. From the signing of D’Onta Foreman to the call to select a defensive player with three out of the team’s first four picks at the 2023 NFL Draft, Poles has continued to shore up positional needs across the board.
Poles has been around the team quite a bit over the past months, from the start of its voluntary offseason program in April to its recent minicamp schedule. As he told The Athletic, Poles gets a sense that there is a “different feeling” within the team.
“It’s not even close,” Poles said. “This is a different group; practice, meetings, the weight room. I feel like a family is starting to come together, even with the rookie class just showing up this past week. There's just a different feeling.”
Poles added that he believes the Bears should contend for the NFC North title this season. Chicago is coming off of a 2022 season in which it finished in last place in the NFC North standings with a 3-14 record, as it clinched the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. The Bears have won the division just once in the last 10 years, which came in the 2018 campaign when they won 12 games.
As mentioned, Poles has gone all out to address multiple team needs, including several on the defensive side of the ball.
“We want to take a big step there,” Poles said last month. “We've done that in free agency, and then we've done that in the draft, too. So we get a corner who can come in and compete for a spot on the outside, and then you get those big guys inside to really be in the heavy rotation with Billings and Justin [Jones], who will be really good leaders for those guys too, be able to show them the way.
“In this league, in terms of the defensive line, you've got to have really two waves. So we've been able to start that inside.”
The Bears sure are looking ahead to the start of their OTAs schedule, which will kick off on May 22.
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