O’Donnell: Bears’ Poles looks like a beaten man

LESS THAN SIX WEEKS AGO, Ryan Poles was gliding upward on the sort of trajectory that would be the envy of any young GM in the National Football League.

He seemed to be straining to maintain a modest demeanor. He appeared set to be fitted for a Halloween costume that featured any Marvel superhero from Iron Man to Captain America — as long as the outfit came in paw-poppin' burnt orange and blue.

All for good reason: His Bears were 4-2 and one batted D.C. prayer away from a sensational start under ascending rookie QB Caleb Williams.

MIDDAY MONDAY AT HALAS HALL, Poles presented a very different persona.

Now his Bears were 4-8. Now Matt Eberflus was merely a benign memory as head coach. Now Kevin Warren had hijacked centerstage of what was clearly a football-oriented news conference.

Poles?

Confidence, gone. Swagger, gone. Beaten man, present.

He had to sit there and endure an opening monologue by Warren that dragged on for more than eight minutes. (Some wondered if Warren breathed through gills under his ears to keep his verbal merengue flowing.)

THE BODY LANGUAGE OF POLES suggested that of a man who knows his football ops fiefdom is diminished. That he no longer has final say on anything major. That Warren has succeeded in making it all about Warren — just the way the Bears president & CEO wants it to be.

Poles looked lost and unprepared. Next to him, Warren said little of substance. But his dominance and semantical cascade made it perfectly clear that he is now the big-brother alpha in a compartment he has sparse proven success in.

THE 22-MINUTE MEDIA SESSION capped a bizarre four days by the most implosive-prone franchise in the NFL. The team is making the New England Patriots look like Amazon.

That weekend span began with Eberflus losing his now-fabled “Motown Rolex Challenge” at the end of the 23-20 loss at Detroit.

But then it pinged into such odd side rails. The smallness of the McCaskey Bears was seldom as obvious as in the 24 hours after the excruciating end at Ford Field.

CONSIDER:

--- There was no reason the decision to fire Eberflus couldn't have been made Thanksgiving night. In the real world of the NFL, decisions are made swiftly and often. Warren, Poles and George McCaskey could have conferred by whatever channeling necessary upon or during return to Chicago and moved forward into Friday morning with a coherent plan;

--- Holidays don't exist in the world of NFL executives. They really no longer exist anywhere in the primary sports that produce such enormous TV revenues in this era. The idea that Eberflus was inhumanely allowed to dangle in the Lake Forest wind because of the anger of Poles or the sanctity of the remaining hours of a three-game NFL Thursday is laughable;

--- If the Bears had a self-assured, market-savvy media relations person still in house, postponing the now-notorious Eberflus media Zoom call Friday morning would have been a no-brainer. Release a statement to media around 7 a.m. stating, “The scheduled Zoom call for 9 a.m. today will be delayed. Update to follow.”

The idea that two simple sentences like that would have fueled “massive” speculation about the future of Eberflus is also gut-busting. The future of Eberflus became an immediate item of national speculation the minute the game clock hit 0:00 in Detroit. Even the semi-conscious Tony Romo of CBS seemed to realize something was amiss.

WARREN ALTERED THE MEDIA RELATIONS STRUCTURE of the Bears in April. McCaskey declined to intervene. The duo are now reaping the strange tidings of the bad karma and inferior efficiencies that they generated.

After the full events of Friday at Halas Hall played out, the big losers were Warren and McCaskey. The message they sent to head coaching candidates was, “We not only don't know what we're doing; we also do things in calloused, mean-spirited ways.”

TOP COACHING CANDIDATES MAY take an interview with the Bears when the hunting season begins in earnest in January. But in any meeting involving Poles, an in-bounds question will be, “Ryan, if I sign on for four years here, what guarantee do I have that you'll be here for my full term?”

Warren has made it more evident than ever that his top priorities at his current career stop are strengthening his grip on his throne and positioning himself for huzzahs involving anything good that happens anywhere around the team.

His myopia doesn't factor in that his No. 1 charge upon arrival last year was accelerating “shovels in the ground” on a new stadium. Instead, he's retarded the progress of that drive. The tag “stadium whisperer” has been replaced by “big project impediment.”

AND NOW IN THE PUPPET'S ROOST is Ryan Poles. The fall has been quick and dramatic. At age 39, if he is smart, he will figure a way out with the perception of upward mobility intact before the sack masters of Halas Hall bring him all the way down.

The Marvel superhero of October has been flipped into the beaten-down disposable of a very Bears Thanksgiving weekend.

The modest paw-poppin' is now touching much closer to career breaking.

Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.