Dietz: Poles can’t be trusted to make big decisions for Bears

Hello again, faithful readers.

After a 10-month hiatus from the Daily Herald, I’m back on a weekly basis — mainly to give my thoughts on the Blackhawks.

In case you were wondering, I jumped out of the sportswriter lane last March to become a Catholic school teacher in the Western suburbs. While the sportswriter in me is excited to resurface, there's something special about being a teacher and I'm looking forward to my second career working with kids. Maybe one will even turn into a journalist one day.

But enough of that.

Before I dive into the Blackhawks’ disappointing season, let’s go to where the iron is hot — the even more disappointing, disjointed and disillusioned Bears.

First off, I’ll repeat what I said in these pages 11 months ago — nothing changes until the McCaskey family sells the team. (The fans certainly sent that message loud and clear during the home finale, didn’t they?)

Last February, I told you all it “doesn’t matter how shiny a house or car is on the outside; if the foundation, studs, engine or transmission is faulty, you’re going to have serious problems. That, in a nutshell, is the Bears.”

Since no “For Sale” sign is up, however, you all have to deal with the situation as it stands. What I can’t figure out is why Kevin Warren continues to place his faith in GM Ryan Poles. Poles has done nothing to make you believe he can build a winner.

In fact, he’s done the exact opposite with plenty of questionable-to-horrendous roster moves and wretched hirings up and down the coaching staff.

But let’s focus on one of the biggest mistakes — the drafting of Caleb Williams.

Some of you are no doubt yelling, “WHAT? YOU’RE CRAZY!”

And that’s fine — but hear me out.

Williams’ supporters point out he threw for 3,541 yards, ran for 489 more and amassed 20 touchdown passes against just 6 interceptions. Taken in a vacuum, those are solid numbers.

But you all know the truth: Many of those stats were piled up in the fourth quarter when the Bears were hopelessly behind. In nine of 17 games, Williams threw for fewer than 200 yards. Six times he managed 150 or less.

Here’s the bigger point: There’s no way the Bears should have drafted Williams unless it was a guaranteed slam dunk he’s far better than the other five QBs drafted at Nos. 2-12.

With that many QBs going that high, an astute GM should have known they were all fairly close in talent levels.

So Poles should have traded down. How far depended on what he could have reaped in return. Maybe it would have been only one spot, where he could have selected Jayden Daniels.

Regardless, we now know Daniels and Denver’s Bo Nix (who was taken at No. 12) will be terrific quarterbacks.

Daniels led Washington to a 12-5 record while posting very similar passing numbers to Williams but also rushing for 891 yards and 6 touchdowns. Nix, meanwhile, also helped guide the underwhelming Broncos (10-7) to the postseason. He was flat-out spectacular in the final nine games, averaging 253 passing yards while throwing 24 touchdowns.

Atlanta’s Michael Penix also shined in his three late starts, and Minnesota is likely drooling to see what happens when J.J. McCarthy takes the field next season.

The Bears would have been better off with any of those four, combined with the capital that would have come via trade.

Go ahead and make all the excuses you want for Williams: A bad offensive line. A pathetic offensive coordinator. A clueless head coach.

That’s all true.

But he also held on to the ball too long (resulting in many of the 68 sacks the Bears allowed), failed to identify hot receivers on blitzes, missed wide-open receivers and absolutely refused to run when that was the obvious option.

Now, please — PLEASE — don’t get me wrong. Williams will be a solid quarterback. For the hard of reading, that is not the point of this column.

The point is Poles can’t make the big decisions necessary to build a consistent winner.

Sadly, Warren is too blind to see that.

And so the (losing) beat goes on.

John Dietz worked at the Daily Herald from 1998-2024, covering the Blackhawks from 2014-24. You can reach him at jdietz6917@hotmail.com.