Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Ryan Poles gives us a window into the Bears' draft process

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Marshall Harris listened to Bears general manager Ryan Poles’ recent comments that gave us a window into his process leading up to the NFL Draft.

Rahimi Harrison Grody, Midday's Tyndel 2 on Chicago Sports Radio 1043 The Score. We got a vision. Ryan does a great job of stacking that board, him and his crew, and was able to sit in with some of the scouts earlier. And I think they do a great job bringing the information at the table, and we'll proceed business as usual. That's Ben Johnson at the Combine, which is still ongoing in Indianapolis. This is 1043, The Score.

Himi, Harrison Grody, and happy to be joining you on this beautiful Friday. It is beautiful. It is beautiful. Things are beautiful. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. I'm going for a run later. No music.

Raw dog. Also, we have a contribution from that from fellow runner at the score. One Adam Studsonsky. And he said, no music runs are when you really get to know yourself. Love me a good no headphones run. To which I said, for you two who love running, I need the music or else I'm not going anywhere fast. A little inner reflection never heard anybody. I think I can do

both. Depends on the music you want. I do want people to join us for this next segment when we take calls. 3-1-2-6-44-67. How much do you trust Ryan Poles? And you know what? I think we've gotten a lot of conversation and even the conversation that's like frustrated is also like fair though. Because for example,

815 asked why are we back to doing this? And I'm like, well, he had this stuff he said on Todd McShay's podcast. And then they said, I guess. I at that, but the man deserves some flowers for Caleb, Burton, Colson, Menangai, Darnell, etc. I only question is defensive evals at that point.

And I said, and that's fair. But you're questioning is defensive evaluations. What do the bears need the most help on this year? Defense. So, like, yes, it's okay that there's been progress made. That's good. We can all agree that that's good. But the fact that you're still questioning the defensive

eval is still a valid question. So how much is that? And I think that's what trying to get to. And when you hear a GM say, and I think it was a human moment for him, talking about Bray Brown's quote about social media, either reaffirming what you already believe or showing you your greatest fear, that there's a lot of truth to that. And I appreciate the fact that he absorbed it because I think it's a great, she's a great resource, period, for anybody. But you just don't want the social media to creep into the leader of the football team

like that from the football standpoint. Like that's where there's a concern of mine. 309 on the text line. We need to remember that GMs need to grow and develop just like players. He was a rookie GM when they hired him. So yes, we may want to criticize him about past trades and picks, but every great GM has plenty of mistakes early in their career. That's from Rich from Peoria.

I'm not arguing that. Most, though, don't get a second chance. He's been given a second chance. And you know what? He's made the most so far of this second chance. chance. I think there's just a lot of questions about Ben Johnson, offensive specialists, play caller deluxe, and his influence on the picks that turned around the offense. And now can the same thing be replicated on the other side of the ball? I understand that there's a big

discussion when it comes to how much should a guy be allowed to learn on the job. But I think there are times where here the guy has been allowed to learn on the job more than what is the normal amount of grace. Do I think that is the case with Ryan Poles? Not necessarily. Do I think there was way too long of a leash given to Ryan Pace? Yes. Are the two things separate? Yes. And every GM has swings and misses. You know, that's the point too.

Every GM falls in love with somebody and there's some risk. And because they've done better in other areas, they're allowed to take that risk and absorb it differently. I think the best example for me is the 49ers and Tray Lance. That is a huge swing and miss by John Lynch. But at the same time, they were allowed to absorb it with more grace because they had a better team around him.

And they win games. And they picked Mr. Irrelevant who's now getting more than $50 million a year and led them to a Super Bowl. Most people don't hit on seventh round picks like that. But that's also the point is, you know, how much does the draft matter to you? Are you the guy who says that after the second round, it's a crapshoot? because that's a good example of why good process, sound practices can withstand. But that first round swing and miss in 2021, a trail lands is pretty bad.

So, you know, I will cite other teams. It's just no matter of how much risk did you buy yourself and being sound in all these other positions. And the defense has some massive holes. So Ryan Pohl says that he wants to stick to the best player available. Let's go back a couple of days and listen to him at 25. at 25 pick in the draft. Talk about that again.

Philosophically, I feel the same. It's going to be the best player available. I know that may not be the most popular thing because people see kind of like on my board have yellow tags where we need to fill in. But at the same time, I do believe, especially in early rounds like one, you really got to stick to best player available.

We saw that last year. I know there's a lot of questions. You got Cole. Why would you take Colston? I think we found out that it helped us along the way. we'll continue to lean in that philosophy. So that's Ryan Paul's saying yet again

he wants to take the best player available. And he's talked about that many times, like sticking to his board and maintaining the discipline of sticking to that draft board. But then he's also got the other side where social media is somehow dictating part of his job, which he admitted to.

So there's a tool in the middle here that may get them from point A to B. This was to Todd McShay. He talked about what of the tools that they have on the bears data-wise to help predict the draft. Something new is, you know, we created a draft simulator that has some analytics built in based on team needs. You're a part of that?

You don't even know. Thanks, man. We dump in thousands of mock drafts into this. It is scary on how accurate it gets as you get into April. I can rep the draft 150 times in April before we get to it. And it's just like preparing for a game. It's slow motion. Nothing surprises you because you've worked some of those crazy, you know,

someone picked someone right before you or a trade happened. And your ability to adapt and adjust along the way gets really, really high. I thought this was fascinating because he's looking Todd Mischre right in the face. And by the way, you're Mock draft. That helps me do my job because we take basically a compilation of all these Mog drafts, which as you know, they start out very vague, or as vague as they can be, knowing teams have certain needs and how, you know, because there's so much tape out there now, how evaluators are looking at the talent.

And then as you get closer and closer to the draft, because the way free agency works and everything else, you now have even more specific needs. And I'm so curious to see how that actually affects them. What I like about this is he's saying, not, hey, we use like necessarily AI or these mock drafts to see what we're going to do, but it helps us navigate what we think other teams are going to do, and that better prepares us to be able to move on the fly and have certain expectations in certain rounds with, let's say, the 25th pick. You're, you know, it's like for people at home who play fantasy football, right?

If you have the 12th pick in the draft, there's a lot more research done on making your first and second round picks, as opposed to if you have the fifth pick, because there's only four guys that are going before you. You just pick out who are your favorite five guys. Well, and the thing is, Ryan Poles can say best player available and they stick to their board. There's no better example than last year when they clearly wanted Ashton Genti, and they end up not drafting until the seventh round in Kyle Monongai. Like, that's barely obvious that they stuck to their board. But their board also had Ruben Hippolyte, who was largely considered an undrafted free agent in the fourth round.

I disagree. You know, the defensive evils for everybody just isolating on that. I think there's a lot to be said about that there. But then at the same time, Kyler Gordon and Jaquan Brisker were good draft picks. You know, take that draft. But then Valis Jones is your other dude. And, you know, frankly, Ozzie Tripillo,

I'm thrilled at how he turned out. I think Dan Rochard is a hell of a coach. I know that this Patelor attendant may change the course of his career. But it was also a big gamble. A big gamble to decide you're taking a 6.8 right tackle and think that you want to move him to left. And that goes back to what we were talking about with the, what the traits are, what the tape is, what the performance is on tape, and then what you think you can make him into. And that's the part.

It's that last part where I'm asking myself, well, how much does that factor into how you put this board together? Because we all think we can change people. I feel like you came up a very specific place when you said, we all believe that we can change people. change people talking about Ryan Poles and whether or not we trust him or not. I do not, but that's okay because he's got Ben Johnson and Dennis Allen here on Rahimi Harrison, Grotie on 104-3, the score. Declared his David on 104-3-3 the score. Listen, 312-644-6-7-67. Texas, call us. Let us. I just want to know if other people trust Ryan Poles to a degree which I do not. How much? How much? Yeah. How much trust do you have in this man? Because here's how much I trust him.

I trust that he will defer to Ben Johnson and Dennis Allen when they talk about what they need. But that's the point. Like that's the point of a team. You know, just like if you really actually have people who will check you. And from what it sounds like in the past, according to one report that may not have been the case, where if you checked him, you probably saw a pink slip and you were out the door. But at the same time, you know, if you have respect for Ben Johnson's resume, for example, respect for Dennis Allen's resume.

And to be fair, I think that Ryan Poles was also reflective of what Matt Iberfluse wanted when he was the head coach. There's a confidence statement when Roquan Smith was traded out of the building and Iber Fluss says, well, we wouldn't have drafted an offball linebacker in nine.

The All-Pro, the multi-time All-Pro. Could be a future Hall of Famer, by the way. It was a good calling by the whoever this coordinator was, and that would be me. He did have some good calls a coordinator. Okay, I'm not going to, I'm not going to take away all of it. That's funny and I liked it. But point being, Ryan Poles was reflective of what Maddie Eberflus wanted to. That's what a good executive does. Like, you have to have a conversation with your coach. Can you coach this guy?

But it's when we say, it's when we say, oh, despite playing at a different position, despite showing different tape, despite showing X, Y, and Z, I still like these traits about this player, even though his tape may not show it. We'll coach him up because we've got the best guys. You did not have the best guys. Some of these people are who they are. So how many of those swings and misses can you take? And just like us talking about the 49ers and John Lynch,

when you have a good group around you, you can take a little more risk and you withstand it and it's not going to cost you as much. That's the point here. I want to point something out here because 309 with a text that's been shared by others in its sentiment, polls is in a lose-lose situation with this station. If it's a great draft, it's Ben's.

Fair draft, it's on polls. You're picking a side without picking a side. Let me explain why that's not true. I would say they're not listening. And if you want to half listen, then you can do that. But I also want to clarify, because this isn't the first time I've heard this argument. With Ryan Poles, he's done enough things that you can call into question or just straight out bad decisions that he is operating at a deficit going into last season.

The Bears had a better season. He had a better draft. We know Ben Johnson had his fingerprints, if not control, of that draft and what the priorities were. If he can replicate that on defense, yes, my stance will change on Ryan Poles. I'll give him more credit. And I did give him credit for some of the picks that he made in this past draft. I gave him credit for the offseason moves that brought about a completely reconstructed offensive line. Some people are just triggered when they hear something negative.

Well, I don't even know that we're being negative because we're saying, we're not saying, do you trust him? I trust him a little bit. I trust him to do what Ben Johnson and I guess Dennis Allen are guiding him to do. I want to know without Ian Cunningham now as the assistant GM, what happens this draft with a completely different set of needs? He's had, what did you say lately? He needs to have as many good seasons as he's had bad seasons and we know he's still, even after winning the division title, operating at a deficit? Yeah, I was going to say I need to see as many of last year's performances

as the ones he had before to feel differently about him. So I feel like that was an excellent step last year. But as we've mentioned, you took some big swings in free agency on the defensive side of the ball too that we're still all questioning. So I need to see as much of progress made

in the next year as you had last year for me to change wholeheartedly and give more trust. Now, do I think he earned his extension last year? Yes. I would not have it. I said this before. I said this initially when he got it.

I didn't think that he deserved the extension at the time. But already you've evolved that opinion because of the success that this team had and what the players that he brought in did, honestly. Winning matters. Yeah. And then two, two, four says, so you are picking and choosing. It's a case-by-case basis. Then you add up your case and you see how you feel.

if you want to do things differently, that's on you. And then the next text says, people forget about Chase Claypool, whereas somebody else said, why did you bring up Chase Claypool? And when we say that the split is the split, that's what we mean. So you heard our trust. 312, 644, 67, 67 is our number. How much do you trust him? And I feel like this is a conversation that we're going to have until the actual draft

in April. So you have some time to listen and think about it and reevaluate it. And just like a menu at a restaurant, you may not like one thing. the menu but you like the other so how much that's uh rehimi harrison grody on the score and if we have time for a dangerous nugget i found one i'll leave it at that