New Bears general manager Ryan Poles won’t have to turn on his television Sunday to know the value of a quarterback. The Chiefs, the team for which he worked for almost 13 years until the Bears hired him Tuesday, had never hosted an AFC championship game in their franchise history until they drafted quarterback Patrick Mahomes in 2017. When they throw open the gates of Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday, it will mark the fourth-straight season they’ve played a home game to try to get to the Super Bowl.
Poles was part of a Chiefs college scouting staff that drafted Mahomes, who, with speculation about Tom Brady retiring, became the defining quarterback in the sport. No matter his greatness, though, Mahomes is not nearly as instructive for Poles’ building of the Bears than the team he will be facing: the Bengals.
