Silvy: As GM, Poles needs to take responsibility for Bears’ failures with Williams last season
The Bears are the equivalent to the old-school parent who thinks the best way to teach their young child how to swim is by throwing him into a pool and having them swim to survive.
For years, it’s how they “developed” quarterbacks. They would draft or sign one and throw them into the deep end and expect them swim.
Ryan Poles knew this. He said he had researched all of the Bears’ past failures and coined the phrase, “It’s time to break the cycle at quarterback.” Instead, Poles and the Bears coaching staff drafted Caleb Williams No. 1 and threw him into an ocean filled with rip currents.
Williams was pulled down several times thanks to climate around him and nearly drowned in his rookie season.
We knew most of this story by simply watching the Bears’ (lack of) plan for the QB most of the 2024 season, but the upcoming book by ESPN’s Seth Wickersham shed new light on the subject last week. There were two main points the excerpts displayed.
1. Williams and his father were indeed actively looking for ways to not have to play for the Bears. After the combine, Wickersham explains that Caleb told his dad that he wanted to play for the Vikings. It wasn’t until Williams met with the Bears at Halas Hall in a pre-draft visit that he relented and looked forward to the challenge of playing in Chicago. I wrote about that meeting last year.
2. The mishandling of Williams’ development after he willingly became a Bear was even more dysfunctional than we thought. The biggest takeaway was Caleb had nobody to watch film with to get better.
The first issue isn’t a big deal to me or most sane Bears fans if you know the team’s history. The phrase I’ve heard most from the fan base is “do you blame him” for questioning the Bears? The history is the history. This was a prospect doing his due diligence.
The second is football malpractice. And whenever someone is busted with a form of malpractice, they don’t get a second chance. Somehow, Poles is still here and could even receive a contract extension if he hasn’t already.
As I’ve explained in the past, Poles told me in February that Williams has a great work ethic but needed to learn the difference between working a college football week and a week in the NFL.
Poles witnessed all of that first hand and never corrected it in real time? Poles never had a coach step in and teach Williams on how to prepare in the NFL?
Poles’ hired the wrong coach in 2022, kept him too long, and then allowed that coach to hire an even worse offensive coordinator while he, the boss, just rode in the side car.
You might be saying, “OK, Silvy, that’s in the past, and we’ve gone over it countless times. Isn’t it time to move on?”
And the answer is a resounding yes, with one caveat. The same GM is still running the show. Poles’ execution of hiring Ben Johnson went as well as we could hope and maybe Johnson and his staff fix everything. I just hope Poles has looked himself in the mirror, takes full accountability, and learns from it.
We need more than another offseason of hype to think the Bears have arrived. When you’re the only team in the NFL that hasn’t developed a quarterback, every ounce of energy must be used.
This isn’t bad luck for our Bears, the missteps must be taken seriously and corrected going forward.
Johnson seemed to understand the task when asked about Chicago being where quarterbacks go to die.
Johnson was happy to hear it and looks forward to changing the narrative.
George Halas once said, “nobody who gave it his best ever regretted it.” Unfortunately, there are many regrets over the years from our Bears. We know it. Let’s hope they understand too and never let what happened in 2024 happen again.
• Marc Silverman shares his opinions on the Bears weekly for Shaw Local. Tune in and listen to the “Waddle & Silvy” show weekdays from 2 to 6 p.m. on ESPN 1000.