Ryan Poles pours cold water on further Bears trade deadline moves

The Chicago Bears have landed their white whale, acquiring All-Pro Jeffery Simmons in a trade with the Tennessee Titans. However, there are still holes on the roster.

Simmons’ presence will fix a lot of things. His nine quarterback hits already lead the Bears while his four sacks are tied for the team lead. The defensive tackle will create plenty of chaos in the backfield, which should make things easier on the secondary.

Still, Simmons is just one player. The Bears could use an upgrade at cornerback, and the pass rush remains a question. There is plenty of talent available leading up to the deadline.

Bears general manager Ryan Poles isn’t necessarily trying to go down that route though. He wants to do everything in his power to help the team win now. But so much of Chicago’s future has already been sacrificed.

Chicago Bears change deadline approach

Giving up two first-round picks and a fourth for Simmons, the Bears are hamstrung in the draft department. Poles will continue to have trade discussions, but he isn’t expecting to deal away any more significant draft capital, via the general manager’s Friday press conference.

“We’ve got to be very smart with how we move forward,” Poles said. “We’re not just going to throw picks all over the place right now. We’ll listen and see if something makes sense or not. But I’d like to think that whole process will slow down just a little bit.”

The general manager has heard all the memes about the ‘F them picks,’ strategy. The Los Angeles Rams have adopted that mentality in full, as they didn’t have a first-round pick from 2017-2023. It worked in the franchise’s favor, as the Rams won the Super Bowl in 2021.

Poles doesn’t subscribe to that line of thinking. He values Chicago’s draft picks. At the same time, with limited resources, the GM knows he doesn’t have much room for error.

“That’s really not what we’re about,” Poles said of the ‘F them picks’ philosophy. “I know it took a lot to get this done. But we absolutely believe that the draft and bringing in young talent is the way you sustain success around here. I’m challenging myself and our crew for the picks that we do have, we have to hit. We have to be great with our undrafted free agent process. Whatever tier of free agency we’re working with, we got to hit there too.”

“We have a good track record, it continues to get better every year,” he continued. “I got a lot of faith we’ll be able to get that done and sustain success.”

Until the trade deadline is over, fans will be clamoring for the Bears to make more additions. Perhaps there is a trade out there that still suits Chicago. But in terms of trading away even more draft picks, Poles is a bit squeamish to that idea.

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