It should be clear by now that there's a lot of things wrong with the Chicago Bears beyond what's happening on the field.
Going into next season, the Bears are already going to be searching for a new head coach, and more than likely entire staff, to help fix a clearly fractured locker room.
But, it seems the Bears might have even more organizational issues to handle beyond that major coaching decision.
On Monday, Adam Jahns of The Athletic noted on his podcast and again on social media that when the Bears hired former head coach Matt Eberflus and general manager Ryan Poles, Eberflus was given a 5-year contract while Poles was given a 4-year contract.
Jahns added that to his knowledge, Poles has yet to sign an extension with the team, meaning the 2025 season will be the final year of Poles' deal with the team.
With Eberflus fired and the search on for a new coach, that means the organization and Poles will have to come to terms on a decision beforehand. It'll be hard to sell any candidate on the job unless they're certain the front office will have stability coming into the position.
That gives Poles and the Bears two options. Either extend Poles and tie him to the new head coach coming in, or decide to part ways and bring in a new general manager with the new head coach.
A few days back when team president Kevin Warren and Poles met with the media following Eberflus' firing, Warren confirmed the team will be sticking with Poles and will help him lead the upcoming head coaching search.
"Ryan is young. He's talented. He's bright. He's hard-working," Warren said. "He has done everything in his power on a daily basis to bring a winner to Chicago. And I'm confident in Ryan. My faith remains strong in Ryan."
If that's the case, then why haven't the Bears extended Poles yet as the team's general manager? Well we might have the answer now after this latest report and it has to do with Poles' current feelings with the power structure of the organization.
Late on Monday, Marc Silverman on the Waddle and Silvy Show on ESPN 1000 revealed some key information regarding Poles' potential frustrations with how things have changed in Chicago since taking over as general manager.
“The other information that was interesting to me was one of the main reasons that Ryan Poles took the Bears job was because he liked the direct reporting nature to the team owner," Silvy said. "It was very appetizing to him as a general manager to report directly to ownership. There was no buffer. If he had an issue, he could go right to George [McCaskey], right to ownership...
"And when Kevin Warren was hired, he was frustrated with that from the start. That he never loved it. It was not a personal thing with Kevin, but it was something that he didn’t like that he went from reporting to the owner to now having to report to a team president who reports to the owner. There was a go-between. And he was very vocal about that to people he trusted inside the building, that maybe he never would have taken the job to begin with."
Silvy added at the end that this report is purely a theory at the moment but if accurate, it could lead to Poles parting ways with the Bears this offseason. And it's easy to see why Poles could feel this way and want to move on if this holds true.
For the Bears' side of things, Poles leaving Chicago would be a bad scenario to occur but ultimately could be a good thing in the long run. The best practice in hiring a head coach is being able to pair him with a general manager he trusts coming into the organization.
Leading two searches at once will be a tough challenge for Warren and the organization but it's the safest route to go from a team building perspective saying Poles wants to move on this offseason.
