Bears GM Ryan Poles on working with Ben Johnson.mp4

Bears GM Ryan Poles talks about his working partnership with new coach Ben Johnson, how it came about and why he thinks it will work.

Transcript

00:00Also frustrating, you know, because of what happened, but I do believe everything happens

00:10for a reason.

00:12And, but it's good because he has a vision for the players that we have on the roster.

00:17And also with the two of us putting our brains together, the direction we're going to go,

00:21the players we're going to bring in here is going to be lined up.

00:25There's going to be parts of the season where, you know, if Caleb's got to throw it 50, 20,

00:2930 times and we've got to air it out, then that's awesome.

00:33But we all know when you get late in the season, and I would love to have some home games,

00:37you know, in January.

00:38You've got to be able to run the football, just turn on, you know, the playoffs right

00:42now.

00:43Everyone's running the ball.

00:44Bad weather.

00:45So that has to be a part of your identity.

00:46Yeah, it's going to come down to who the defense coordinator is.

00:50So there could be a change with that.

00:51Yeah.

00:52And I had conversations with our front office.

00:55They've been working through, for agency right now and through this whole process, which

00:58by the way is awesome.

01:01We're at the level where I can step away, really lean into this, and for those guys

01:05to be able to run that process really, really well.

01:09But we're going to stay open-minded.

01:10If we need to adapt to, you know, 34, 43, we can do that.

01:14And actually, a lot of our guys have the flexibility.

01:16Yeah.

01:17We spend a lot of time together.

01:18That was part of our interview process, is how do you handle discrepancies when it comes

01:23to player acquisition?

01:25And he answered it perfectly.

01:26It's spending time and watching tape together to figure out what direction we need to go

01:31in.

01:32We're going to have different opinions.

01:33We're going to see players differently.

01:34But it's coming together, watching tape, and figuring out what's best for the organization.