With the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, Bears general manager Ryan Poles said he’d have to be “blown away” by the top quarterback prospect in the draft — with Alabama’s Bryce Young and Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud at the top of that list — to take a quarterback and trade starter Justin Fields.
But he never really gave himself a true chance to be blown away. Poles traded the No. 1 pick to the Panthers on March 10 — after the scouting combine but before the top quarterbacks’ pro day workouts and before he could bring any quarterback in for a “top 30” visit — one of 30 players NFL teams are allowed to bring to their facility for in-depth interviews.
As Poles himself said, the most important part of homework on the quarterback is “the person. I’ve got a lot of confidence in our ability to see talent on the field. The human being we’ve got to figure out.”
And how do you do that? “Spend time,” Poles said. “Reach out to the people that spent a lot of time with them over the years. [And] I always feel like if you can sit down and look someone in the eye and ask them the right questions, you can learn a lot.”
Poles ended up passing on the quarterbacks last year and traded the No. 1 pick to the Panthers for their 2023 and 2024 first-round picks, their 2023 and 2025 second-round picks, their 2024 fourth-round pick — and wide receiver DJ Moore.
And it worked out almost magically for Poles when the Panthers took Bryce Young, who predictably struggled without the veteran Moore and the Panthers went an NFL-worst 2-15, giving the Bears the No. 1 overall pick this year.
That deal has made Poles look like a genius. But it’s the No. 2 quarterback in that draft — the Texans’ C.J. Stroud — that has come into focus, with Poles again evaluating quarterbacks.
While Young struggled, Stroud had one of the best rookie seasons of any rookie quarterback in NFL history. He threw for 4,108 yards — more than any quarterback in Bears history, by the way. He had a 100.8 passer rating — fifth-best in the NFL. He threw 23 touchdowns passes and only five interceptions in 419 passes — the second-lowest interception percentage (1.0%) for a rookie starter in the Super Bowl era.
Most importantly, the Texans improved from 3-13-1 to 10-7 and a playoff berth against the Browns on Saturday at NRG Stadium.
That’s just what the Bears were looking for. But while Poles wasn’t blown away by C.J. Stroud, he doesn’t feel he mis-evaluated him, because every quarterback in the draft was measured against the haul he could get for the No. 1 pick, which was substantial even before he knew the Panthers’ 2024 first-round pick would be No. 1 overall.
“You have to take what’s best for your team,” Poles said. “So when you look at that situation [with Stroud] and how it ended up playing out, to have DJ [Moore], to have Darnell [Wright], to have [Tyrique] Stevenson, to have the first overall and the [Panthers’] second next year, I feel like that’s best for our organization.”
That’s fair enough, especially with the opportunity to get Williams. But with a potential franchise-altering decision in the balance, Poles’ ability to evaluate quarterbacks remains an unknown.
With the Chiefs, Poles was part of the process that led to choosing Patrick Mahomes in the 2017 draft, but he would not detail his role in that process at his introductory press conference. With the Bears, his only quarterback evaluation has been sticking with Fields, choosing P.J. Walker as Fields’ back-up (Walker was cut after the preseason) and signing undrafted rookie Tyson Bagent, who ended up winning the back-up job and going 2-2 as a starter in 2023.
There’s still a long way to go. But Poles already has indicated he’s going to give himself a better chance to be “blown away” this time. Even though the early offers for the No. 1 pick likely will be even better this year than last year, “in my mind,” Poles said, “I’m gonna take this all the way to April.”
