These mistakes will lead to the downfall of Ryan Poles with the Chicago Bears

Hiring Matt Eberflus was Ryan Poles' first mistake

The first mistake that Ryan Poles made in his tenure as the general manager of the Chicago Bears was hiring Matt Eberflus to be the new head coach. When going through the potential candidates, I had Eberflus ranked seventh. Seventh does not sound too bad until you realize I only ranked 10 candidates.

Brian Daboll was the coach I wanted most who was not named Jim Harbaugh. The thing is, there were a few other options but the Bears didn't even interview them. Mike McDaniel and Kevin O'Connell are two of them. I would have been happy with either of them over Eberflus too. Brian Flores, the defensive coordinator of the Vikings and former Dolphins head coach would have also been above Eberflus in my rankings.

A few guys I was not high on but who might be proving me wrong are Dan Quinn and Todd Bowles. I also thought Byron Leftwich would be a solid option for Justin Fields but Leftwich hasn't amounted to much since moving on from the Bucs in 2022.

Honestly, I'm not sure if any of these coaches could have done a worse job than Matt Eberflus. Eberflus' record as head coach is currently 14-28. He deserves a little bit of a break as Poles tore the team down to the studs in year one.

However, looking at how Eberflus ranks among the other head coaches of the Chicago Bears, he has a worse winning percentage than Marc Trestman (2013-2014) who only lasted two seasons. By year's end, he could have a worse winning percentage than John Fox, who only lasted three seasons (2015-2017). In fact, outside of Fox, only one other coach has a worse winning percentage than Matt Eberflus. That coach was Abe Gilbron (1972-1974) and he, too, only lasted two seasons. I'm not sure how Eberflus lasts beyond this season. Ryan Poles made two other possible career-ending mistakes.