The Bears have been unofficial winners of the last three offseasons and it has yet to produce anything worthwhile.
It did help get a coaching staff fired. The word "help" is necessary in there because for all of their foul-ups and late-game disasters, the coaching staff only caused part of their problems.
GM Ryan Poles remains on board without an extension. Tracing Bears overall incompetence back even before him to Ryan Pace, the bottom line is the Bears have drafted and keep drafting poorly.
It's the root cause of most Chicago Bears problems.
The coaching staff is going to work with what they're given. They influence who is drafted and also develop the players. Now Ben Johnson seems to have a bigger role in this regard than other Bears coaches did with the way he has worked closely with Poles.
The fact Poles hasn't selected a Pro Bowl player yet after four drafts and three seasons is compounded by the fact only one player drafted by Pace even earned that honor, and that's cornerback Jaylon Johnson.
Bears only tread water
The impact of all this is felt in the way the Bears must spend money. They can never get ahead without good drafts.
As usual, they lean on free agency to make up for their failings. A team doing that is never in an advantageous position.
A Bleacher Report analysis says the Bears have the league's most improved position group in the league with their offensive line. It better be because of how much they spent and gave up to get it. This doesn't always equate with money well spent, but the linemen brought in aren't even the most critical lineman on their roster for 2025.
They have failed repeatedly at brining in line talent, so the most critical players are Darnell Wright, Ozzy Trapilo, Kiran Amegadjie and Luke Newman. On defense, it's Shemar Turner and Gervon Dexter, Kyler Gordon and Jaquan Brisker.
It's the younger guys who Poles brought on board that matter most. Whether it's in games or in training camp, the Bears need to see young players Poles drafted stepping forward.
Give Poles high marks for creativity because he has found a way to compensate somewhat for draft failure by supplementing free agent signings with trades. Those trades cost them draft picks, though, and while he did recoup some picks through other trades, it still cost possible draft picks.
Buying players means bleak future
All of this Poles spending is building to a point in the future where the Bears collapse again if they don't begin to see draft picks develop.
In the NFL, you usually get what you pay for and last year the Bears spent $17.6 million of their cap space on the offensive line.
Only four teams spent less. The 68 sacks of Caleb Williams and a fall from second in rushing to 28th says last season they probably even overspent, if that's possible.
This year they've changed it with $59.03 million in cap space for the offensive line, the ninth most in the league. This is why they're getting praised by Bleacher Report.
Yet, they had to bring in mercenaries because Poles has already failed to add or properly judge existing line talent. This was supposed to be his area of expertise.
This change in spending has led to the Bears devoting the most cap space of any team in the NFC North to offense this year. The Bears spend $146.78 million offense, Detroit $145.9 million, Minnesota $135 million and Green Bay $111.09 million. All figures are according to Spotrac.com.
The real problem is they've raised their offensive spending to this point while starting a quarterback who is still on his first contract. Only four NFL teams in the league spend less for their quarterbacks than the Bears. What happens when the QB needs to be paid?
Winning teams in a situation like this are fine. Losing teams who spend little for quarterbacks but a ton for other offensive players had better start to get results from drafted linemen because the worthwhile quarterback eventually gets paid. For Williams, it would be after 2026, sometime into 2027.
When that happens, there is less to give to everyone else. Then, the Bears will feel the real crunch.
Draft picks must develop
A team can't simply go out and sign free agents or trade for expensive players once their QB room is gobbling up $50 million a year or more in cap space.
It's why Darnell Wright, Ozzy Trapilo, Luke Newman are more important to the future than other players. They need to see Wright become a dominant player along the lines of Penei Sewell in Detroit. They need Trapilo to step up in training camp—or 2024 third-rounder Kiran Amegadjie for that matter—so they have players capable of starting at left tackle. Paying Braxton Jones the going rate for a starting left tackle next year isn't realisticunless he became Pro Bowl caliber while rehabbing an ankle injury.
It would be good to know Newman can play, although sixth-rounders usually don't do much as rookies. At least knowing his role and potential would be good for his rookie development.
Poles doesn't have his contract extension yet, or at least the Bears haven't announced one.
Until it's apparent some of these draft picks Poles made might have actual NFL futures, GM future should be an announcement the Bears hold off on making.
Ben Johnson deciding who a good GM would be to work with in the future might not be a bad idea, considering how things went when someone affiliated with Bears ownership has made these crucial decisions in the past.
