CHICAGO — The video surfaced late Monday night, a little before 11 p.m. Undercover, of course. And shared on social media by Eric Bohn, whose Twitter bio identifies him as “your trusted resource for Chicago’s Northside and the North Shore residential real estate market.”
In this case, he was moonlighting as an impromptu P.I. — with his cellphone ready.
This, after all, is what we do in 2022. See, share, then open the floor to reaction.
Bohn’s covert video documentation showed what certainly appeared to be Chicago Bears Chairman George McCaskey strolling through O’Hare airport with a man who certainly appeared to be Kansas City Chiefs executive director of player personnel Ryan Poles, a finalist for the Bears general manager job.
Finally! In the third week of the Bears’ hunt for a new GM and head coach, we had eyes on the process, evidence of McCaskey, with boots on the ground, meeting Poles at the airport and bringing this all-important search party into a new in-person stage.
And well, from there everything escalated rather quickly. After Poles’ second interview with the team Tuesday, this time at Halas Hall in Lake Forest, he agreed to become the Bears’ new general manager, a move first reported by ESPN and the NFL Network.
By Tuesday morning, Bohn’s airport video had more than 700 likes and close to 300 retweets. Many of the replies went as you’d expect.
There was predictable sarcasm. From @puttinonfoil: “Wow. George running an Uber now.”
There were jump-to-conclusions responses. From @Eric11Lackey: “Personally, I love this. Ryan Poles is our next GM as long as he accepts. George is adding that extra personal touch, him picking him up saying ‘you’re my guy, When you’re my guy, you’re family.’ This is a huge sign of respect to the candidate.’
And then, naturally, there were next-level social media sleuths who froze the video, zooming in and seeking clues to figure out something. About anything.
Wait … Was that, in McCaskey’s right hand, a chauffeur sign that reads “Canandaigua”? Wasn’t Poles a football star once upon a time at Canandaigua Academy in the New York town of his birth? What a clever and clandestine way to welcome a prospective hire to Chicago! (Except McCaskey, in a pair of jeans and gym shoes, was also wearing a Bears mask and a Bears jacket.) So much for a stealth operation.
Still, McCaskey and the Bears did what they needed to do. They zeroed in on a candidate they felt strongly about after a lengthy round of virtual interviews with at least 14 other GM prospects. And with the Minnesota Vikings also vying for Poles, the Bears left nothing to chance.
Fifteen days after Ryan Pace was fired from the GM role, Ryan Poles was tabbed to take over.
Making progress
When Tuesday morning began, it seemed as if the Bears were simply taking the next step in what had been a long search.
Moving past the virtual phase of the interviewing process, Poles became the first known candidate for either of the Bears’ open jobs to meet with the team at its headquarters in Lake Forest. According to league sources and multiple national reports, the Bears were also working to line up second interviews with GM candidates Eliot Wolf and Monti Ossenfort while pushing to schedule in-person meetings with potential coaches Dan Quinn, Matt Eberflus and Jim Caldwell as well.
Poles’ Tuesday interview, however, reportedly ended with contract negotiations.
Poles, for what it’s worth, was also scheduled to meet with the Minnesota Vikings this week for a second time, a finalist for that organization’s GM job as well. That’s something McCaskey and the search committee remained aware of. Up in New York, meanwhile, the Giants’ coaching search has heated up quickly after they hired Joe Schoen as their new GM Friday. (Schoen spoke with the Bears about their GM opening Jan. 16 but landed with the Giants.) He also has close ties to one head coaching candidate many Bears fans have been pining for most: Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll, who now appears to be emerging as a top target for the Giants.
It’s entirely possible Daboll will follow Schoen to the Giants. And while that will hardly register as a knockout punch for the Bears, Daboll landing a new gig anywhere outside Chicago will leave a chunk of the fan base feeling jilted.
At the same time
This is all simply part of the deal, the way searches often evolve and change. And on Tuesday, the Bears made good on one of McCaskey’s biggest vows. As he emphasized Jan. 10: “We prefer to hire the GM first.”
That strategy always made sense. The Bears, McCaskey indicated, would look to lock in a new general manager before moving on to secure a coach. Yet for more than two weeks, the team pushed through the first phase of virtual interviews for both jobs simultaneously, meeting with at least 10 head coaching candidates while concurrently speaking with at least 15 GM prospects.
Bill Polian has been assisting with the searches. And presumably, he came in with a master plan on how to help the Bears smoothly handle the two respective hunts. “With Bill’s guidance,” McCaskey noted, “we’re going to be able to find a partnership of GM and coach that will work.”
Still, some around the league have emphasized that if the Bears were promising that their next GM will have complete oversight of the football operation, that also now means allowing Poles to conduct his own coaching search via his own methods with his own list of candidates.
That’s where the team’s push to schedule second interviews with head coaching candidates before hiring a GM has caused a bit of head-scratching in pockets of the league. At the very least, it’s something McCaskey and Phillips will have to explain.
And when Poles has his opportunity to express his vision publicly and offer an update on the next steps of the coaching search, more light will be shed on the direction that will lead the Bears to their next GM-coach union.
