Ryan Poles never misses a practice.
He’s been roaming the fields at Halas Hall during mandatory minicamp this week with a close watch on the roster he built — a 91-man roster, by the way, that is down to just 15 holdovers from the Ryan Pace era.
So Poles knows firsthand what this team has and lacks. He surely could see that a year ago, too, ahead of the Bears going 3-14.
But unlike last season, there must be urgency to make repairs.
This can’t be another burn year. It has to be a step forward. If everything goes right for the Bears, they have a shot at the playoffs. Poles can’t turn down that opportunity in the name of incremental rebuilding. Every acquisition doesn’t have to be future-focused anymore; the Bears are fighting for something in the present.
Poles’ offseason decisions have indicated he is, in fact, thinking that way. While he didn’t solve all the Bears’ problems, he made upgrades at linebacker, wide receiver and offensive line. His secondary is now stocked with a Pro Bowl safety (Eddie Jackson) and four defensive backs that were second-round picks in the last few years (Jaylon Johnson, Kyler Gordon, Tyrique Stevenson and Jaquan Brisker).
But if there are any more moves to make, this is the time to make them.
“Ryan and I are always having those conversations, and they’re big conversations,” coach Matt Eberflus said after practice Wednesday. “You try to prepare yourself for anything that could happen during training camp and then leading up to the season.
“We love the guys that are here, but our job is to always make the roster better. We’re always going to be looking to upgrade in certain spots.”
He mentioned prioritizing improvements at “premium positions,” and that starts with finding help at pass rusher. The Bears have been rationalizing their heavy investment at defensive tackle rather than end by saying it’s actually more important to create pressure in the middle of the line than on the edges of it.
It doesn’t really seem to be by design, though. More likely, they didn’t have enough resources to address everything and had to make the best choices they could with what was available, especially once they traded out of the No. 1 pick in the draft and couldn’t reach premier pass rushers like Will Anderson and Tyree Wilson.
The simplest solution is to pay up for one of the established defensive ends still floating in free agency. None of those options are perfect, otherwise someone else already would’ve stepped in with a big offer to sign them, but any would boost the Bears.
“That is one position we are looking at, and potentially we could get that done,” Eberflus said.
At the moment, their most promising pass rusher is newcomer Demarcus Walker, who is on his fourth team in seven years and had a career-high seven sacks last season. Maybe he is poised for a breakout season, but he could use a proven partner like Jadeveon Clowney, Yannick Ngakoue or Melvin Ingram.
Ngakoue, 28, hired mega-agent Drew Rosenhaus this week to expedite his search for a landing spot. He has averaged 9.3 sacks per season over his career, including 9 1/2 for the Colts last season. Rosenhaus has three clients on the Bears, including wide receiver DJ Moore.
The knock on him is that he’s exclusively a pass rusher and ineffective against the run, but the Bears can’t be overly picky. A one-dimensional pass rusher should sound pretty good to a team that finished last in the NFL in sacks with 20 last season.
Even at this stage of free agency, Ngakoue’s price could spike, but the Bears are well positioned to splurge as they still have the most salary-cap space in the NFL. They endured a lot of losing while they accumulated that cap space, and now is a good time to use some of it.
