One of the strongest evaluations Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles offered Tuesday at the NFL scouting combine was about wide receiver Darnell Mooney.
Mooney, who topped 1,000 receiving yards in his second NFL season in 2021, stopped into Halas Hall to work out and greet the new Bears leaders. Poles was “blown away” by the person he met.
“He’s got a quiet confidence about him,” Poles said of Mooney. “He’s hungry to be special. I’m always looking for guys that just raise their own bar in terms of where they want to go.
“We’ve all been around people that want to be the absolute best they can be, and it’s contagious and it gives you energy. It gives you hope. And it really shows me that we have to keep getting guys like that and adding them to the roster. Because if everyone has that mentality and they keep pushing each other, then all of a sudden the team starts to raise the bar and standard. Then it’s wins, then it’s the division, and then it’s going for championships.”
Finding more players that bring that hope is the goal for Poles, coach Matt Eberflus and the Bears scouts and coaches as they dive into what likely will be a wild month of roster cuts, free agency and draft preparation. In the middle of evaluating draft prospects this week, Poles has crucial decisions to make up and down the roster, which has more than two dozen players set to become free agents when the new league year begins.
Poles didn’t delve into his player-specific intentions, but he did make one thing clear — providing support for second-year quarterback Justin Fields is a goal.
Poles likes what the Bears have in running backs David Montgomery and Khalil Herbert, and thinks they have some good offensive linemen that can be challenged by competition. But if Allen Robinson moves on into free agency as expected — though Poles didn’t rule out the franchise tag when asked Tuesday — the Bears wide receivers corps is bone thin beyond Mooney.
Poles noted that in studying the historical results of second-year quarterbacks, having playmakers that they can trust is important.
“A lot of the really good quarterbacks, especially the young ones, when things go crazy, who can they go to that they trust and is dependable and can make plays?” Poles said. “We’re just trying to keep an eye on them as well.”
He later added: “It’s the dependability piece. Sometimes it can be a slot receiver, sometimes it can be a second tight end, it can be a big outside (receiver). There’s just a relationship piece that they can go to that they trust, that they work with all offseason, that they get that connection with … it’s almost like they get battled out with that guy.”
After the Bears begin to put those pieces into place over the next couple of months, Poles, Eberflus, offensive coordinator Luke Getsy and quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko can begin to help Fields build off a bumpy rookie season in which he threw for 1,870 yards, seven touchdowns and 10 interceptions with a 73.2 passer rating.
Poles had studied enough of Fields prior to the Bears introducing him as GM that he said his evaluation of him wasn’t much different a month later.
He sees a high ceiling, but it’s “just putting him in position to succeed and seeing how high that ceiling is.” He spoke highly of Fields’ demeanor — “this stoic kind of feel you get from him and (he’s) serious and locked in and the focus, and he’s ready to go.” And he noted the flashes of promise he saw in 2021, including a couple of plays against the San Francisco 49ers.
“Him moving out of the pocket and throwing with control and his base is set,” Poles said. “A lot of it is fundamental, too, but then just allowing him to make those throws that he’s really good at. And then wherever he has struggled, it’s just cleaning that area up and we’ll see if we can close the gap and get him to a place we can win a lot of football games.”
Eberflus may be rooted in the defensive side of the football, but he foresees a “dual education” to help Fields grow by helping the quarterback see an opposing defense’s schemes and advise how to attack them.
When asked how he planned to build a relationship with Fields, Eberflus gave a refrain similar to former coach Matt Nagy’s “Be you.”
“I just think be yourself and be genuine,” he said. “Building a relationship is always that. When you go look someone in the eyes and tell them the truth, then they can be on the same page. And be vulnerable sometimes. Say, ‘I made a mistake. I didn’t do that right.’ … That’s how you build trust and how you build a relationship.’”
The Bears have a lot of relationship building to do in the weeks ahead, with the voluntary offseason workout program set to begin April 4. But first they have a long way to go to get their roster in place.
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