CHICAGO — Ryan Poles didn’t need to watch from his seat in the State Farm Stadium press box last week to know he has some heavy lifting to do in the trenches.
The Chicago Bears — missing starting tackles Braxton Jones and Darnell Wright — completely collapsed offensively in a 20-point road loss to the Arizona Cardinals in Week 9.
It has been a central question for some time: Why hasn’t a team run by a general manager who is a former offensive lineman poured more resources into the position? It’s a fair question, even if some of the noise overlooks the fact the team has invested in the line, using the 10th pick in the 2023 draft on Wright, among other moves.
The Bears paid to add guard Nate Davis in free agency, and he was a miss. They will need to replace him in the offseason, one of multiple moves required to upgrade the line.
It will be interesting to see what it looks like Sunday against the New England Patriots at Soldier Field. Jones and Wright will miss the game with knee injuries. The team is hopeful they can return in Week 11 to face the Green Bay Packers.
It was paramount the Bears get the quarterback of their choosing — Caleb Williams — when they had the opportunity, and a nuanced look at last offseason shows Poles might have been right in waiting a year to bolster the line. He certainly was wise to resist any urge to spend any primary draft capital before the trade deadline.
All of that is OK provided the Bears deliver and turn a weakness into a strength. The Bears have allowed 29 sacks — fifth-most in the league — and are 30th in sacks per pass attempt at 10.98%, so there has been far too much pressure on Williams. The organization cannot kick this issue down the road again.
Not many prizes were available on the line in free agency this year. The Carolina Panthers have been roundly criticized for writing a five-year, $100 million contract for guard Robert Hunt. He was one of only six linemen to get a deal averaging $10 million or more on the open market, so in a year in which the Bears were loaded with salary-cap space, they didn’t have a lot to choose from.
Splurging in March might have helped. It also might have saddled the roster with an underperforming player on a contract larger than the three-year, $30 million deal Davis signed in 2023. That kind of move only exacerbates the problem.
The Bears wound up choosing wide receiver Rome Odunze with the ninth pick — after the two top tackles, Joe Alt and J.C. Latham, were off the board — leaving Poles in a position in which he would have had to elevate a position by need over a player with a superior grade to go in a different direction.
Odunze has had two 100-yard games, is showing developing chemistry with Williams and looks to have a bright future. The Bears didn’t add a lineman until taking developmental tackle Kiran Amegadjie in the third round at No. 75. If there was a way to get West Virginia center Zach Frazier, whom the Pittsburgh Steelers selected in Round 2 at No. 52, that would have been perfect. Frazier was the best prospect at his position in the class — probably better than any center in next year’s class — but the Bears were without their second-round pick after trading to add defensive end Montez Sweat.
If the Bears could have traded back into Round 2 while Frazier was still on the board — and that move certainly would have been pricey — perhaps it was a missed opportunity.
Poles has been through this before with his previous organization, the Kansas City Chiefs. He was at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., when the Buccaneers overran the Chiefs in Super Bowl LV with Patrick Mahomes, on a bad toe, running for his life all game with both of the team’s starting tackles out injured. This, as much as anything Poles is watching this season, likely will shape the offseason ahead.
“Nothing sticks in your mind more than something you lived,” an AFC personnel man said. “That’s like PTSD if you lose a Super Bowl because you can’t protect the quarterback. If you get beat a certain way, you’re like, ‘(Darn), I can’t get beat that way again,’ as opposed to studying another team or trying to look at trends. That sticks with you way more — when you’ve experienced it — than the flavor of the day.”
The Chiefs set out to overhaul the line in the 2021 offseason. They started by signing guard Joe Thuney to a five-year, $80 million contract in free agency that at the time made him the fifth-highest paid offensive lineman in the league. The Chiefs followed by trading first-, third- and fourth-round picks along with a future fifth-rounder to the Baltimore Ravens for tackle Orlando Brown and second- and sixth-round picks. Then they drafted center Creed Humphrey in the second round (No. 63) and hit big on guard Trey Smith in the sixth round.
Just like that, the Chiefs had four new starters on the line for Mahomes. Brown wasn’t the player the Chiefs envisioned, and he wound up departing in free agency after two seasons. But Thuney, Humphrey and Smith have been anchors of the middle of the line.
Smith will be an unrestricted free agent after the season, and it would be surprising if the Chiefs do not keep him with a new contract or the franchise tag. In the event he makes it to free agency, figure he would be the Bears’ No. 1 target. The good news is that while it’s early to make sweeping judgments, college scouts like the offensive line depth in the 2025 draft.
With their own picks in the first two rounds and the Panthers’ second — which projects to be one of the top picks of that round — the Bears have the resources to mix-and-match with free agents to march out a new-look line in 2025.
Wright remains a building block for the future, but after that the Bears have question marks or developmental players. Left guard Teven Jenkins will be an unrestricted free agent, and while it’s unlikely the team has reached a determination on his future, ongoing availability issues would be a reason to move on.
Jones will be in the final year of his contract in 2025, and Amegadjie will have an entire offseason to train instead of recovering from injury. Poles and his staff will have to craft a plan based on what’s available and how they evaluate all of their internal options, including potentially Ryan Bates and the possibility of re-signing Matt Pryor as depth pieces.
It will be fascinating to see where specifically Poles uses his resources to fortify the line. Is there a standout left tackle worth considering with the first-round pick? Unless the Bears lose a lot of games down the stretch, they might not be in range to get that player.
Does Poles want to focus on something we’ve heard numerous times this season — having a firm pocket for Williams? If so, that could mean finding two new guards and a center. It’s what the Chiefs accomplished in 2021. It’s a model other teams have adopted as guard pay has exploded with nine now earning $17 million or more annually.
“Not that long ago it was, ‘You can’t pay a guard or you’re dumb if you pay a guard,’ ” the AFC personnel man said. “The game has evolved and some of it is probably in response to double-A-gap pressures and the different stuff you see so often. The firm pocket has become a thing.
“Maybe Russell Wilson played into that. Kyler Murray. Drew Brees was that guy for sure. The Chiefs, they’ve done that. Bryce Young, if he ever pans out, would be that guy. Caleb maybe is that guy. He’s, what, 6-foot-1? Firm pocket. So, now you’re prioritizing the interior and you’re starting to lose that stigma. Now it’s, ‘Why can’t we pay a guard? We pay a tackle.’ Watch what defenses are doing. They’re getting a sub rusher over the guard now or a situational pass rusher and you’re losing quickly on the interior when that happens when you don’t have a guy in there. A lot of that has gone into the explosion of guard pay.”
Bates will be in uniform for the first time since the season opener after a two-month stint on injured reserve. He should get a chance at some point, if not against the Patriots, to help stabilize things.
But a lot of work is left to be done on the O-line, and Poles surely has been aware of that. Fortunately, he has both the picks and the cap space to put together a plan.
