Bears analyst highlights easily overlooked aspect of Ryan Poles' work

When Ryan Poles became the Chicago Bears general manager in 2022, he stepped into a solid mess left behind by his predecessor, Ryan Pace (who now has a new job back in the division). He didn't have a first-round pick for that first draft in his new role, as Pace had given it up to move up for Justin Fields in the previous draft. He also had just six total picks to add young talent to the roster.

With a league-high in dead money, nearly $93.3 million to be exact, Poles couldn't do much to add to the Bears' roster at all that first offseason. That season's 3-14 record was even more dismal, with all of that in mind, but the balance sheet mess was well on its way to being cleaned up.

Things got better in 2023, with the 14th-most dead money in the league to allow for more pliability to add veterans. 10 draft picks also helped add some cheap young talent to a roster that needed it badly.

Poles presumably had some idea that the quarterback class in the 2024 draft looked to be better and deeper than the class at the position in 2023. If not, he looks like Nostradamus now.

A shrewd trade of the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 draft with the Carolina Panthers wound up getting the Bears the No. 1 overall pick in 2024 instead, along with other assets. That No. 1 pick swap, of course, yielded Caleb Williams rather than Bryce Young, which is an unequivocal upgrade.

Ryan Poles and the Bears' front office has done some fantastic financial management

As noted by Jacob Infante of Windy City Gridiron, and included in his list of the five best moves Poles has made as Bears' general manager, cleaning up the dead money mess he inherited has been a sneaky hallmark of recent years.

"This isn’t one specific move as much as it is an overarching theme in Poles’ tenure as the Bears’ general manager", Infante wrote. "When he took over in the role, his predecessor Ryan Pace left the Bears in the bottom 10 in cap space. With an aging roster that clearly wasn’t going to compete, Poles inherited several bad contracts, releasing several overpaid veterans and trading others who still had trade value. In his first year as general manager, Chicago led the NFL with over $93 million in dead cap."

"Some of that dead cap carried over to 2023, but in each of the last three offseasons, the Bears have had a tremendous lack of dead cap space compared to what Poles inherited early on. They ranked 26th in dead cap in 2024, 32nd in 2025, and 22nd in 2026. The DJ Moore trade is eating most of that dead cap this year, and there will be no dead cap on him or any other 53-man rosterable player in 2027, as of this writing. That’s a testament to how well Poles and his regime have managed their finances."

As Infante mentioned, a big chunk of the Bears' dead money this year ($12 million) came from trading wide receiver DJ Moore. Another $4 million hit the books when center Drew Dalman suddenly retired in March. Without those two things, they would have just over $4 million in dead money this year, and nearly $2.5 million of that came with the release of linebacker Tremaine Edmunds.

Read more: New data has been unveiled to fuel Colston Loveland's 2026 outlook

Putting a bad balance sheet in order was arguably task No. 1 for Poles upon replacing Pace. It's not a stretch to say getting it done helped yield a long-awaited division title and playoff victory for the Bears last season, and all signs point to things staying good on that front for a while.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow