Bears president/CEO Kevin Warren said Monday that general manager Ryan Poles would keep his job, be the ‘‘point person’’ for the team’s head-coaching search and, in case of a disagreement, have ‘‘final say’’ about who is hired.
So why was Warren the one who gave the 8-minute, 20-second opening statement to explain the firing Friday of coach Matt Eberflus? The rest of the news conference at Halas Hall, which featured questions for Warren and Poles, lasted only 13 minutes.
If Warren’s intent was to empower Poles — he said that his job was safe and that, as the head of the Bears’ football operations, he would be given the task of finding the new coach — his very presence said otherwise.
Warren sat up straight in a suit with his trademark orange tie. Poles sat to his right in a quarter-zip sweatshirt.
Warren spoke too much and Poles too little. Poles looked cowed, like someone who, well, was sitting next to his boss. Warren has been exactly that since being named the successor to Ted Phillips in January 2023 and starting full time in April of last year after leaving his job as Big Ten commissioner. He said then that he wouldn’t have to use an outside consultant to steer him on football issues, the way the Bears did when they fired former GM Ryan Pace and coach Matt Nagy. Poles said Monday the team hadn’t decided whether it would use a committee to look for Eberflus’ replacement.
Yes, Warren said, Poles will be the point person and have final say on the hire, but he didn’t think the latter would be needed.
‘‘From a final-say standpoint, I mean, ultimately, he’s the general manager,’’ Warren said. ‘‘But I think in working together it’ll be very clear who’s the right person for the Chicago Bears.’’
But what if it’s not?
‘‘We’ll work that out,’’ Warren said.
That couldn’t have sounded reassuring to Poles. Warren said Poles was the one who decided to fire Eberflus after discussing it with him and chairman George McCaskey. The Sun-Times requested that McCaskey speak, but he didn’t; rather, he sat to the right of the dais, between brothers Brian and Patrick.
Warren said he, Poles and George McCaskey still were meeting when the Bears decided to let Eberflus do his regularly scheduled Zoom conference at 9 a.m. Friday. A decision to fire him might have been made earlier had the game against the Lions not been played on a holiday, Warren said. Plus, he supported thinking about the decision overnight.
Firing Eberflus two hours after the news conference, however, was viewed as ham-handed and cruel by many across the league. Warren, who is well-versed in optics, had to know how bad it looked.
If the Bears have ‘‘the most coveted job in the National Football League this year,’’ as Warren claimed, it won’t be because of the way they handled Friday.
‘‘In retrospect, could we have done it better?’’ Warren said. ‘‘Absolutely, and I’ll be the first one to raise my hand.’’
Warren isn’t in his first day on the job. His main task — finding a place to build a new stadium and entities to help pay for it — has stalled. He made only one reference to it Monday, saying the Bears ‘‘have the opportunity to build a world-class stadium.’’ Poles has been here a year longer than Warren, and he just fired the coach to whom he tied his reputation.
Monday wasn’t a fresh start for either man, no matter how Warren tried to sell it.
‘‘I look at today as a first day for us to be able to go together,’’ Warren said. ‘‘Let’s put the past in the past. Let’s start today to go forward and work together because I don’t want to burn any energy on what has happened in the past.’’
No one in Chicago, however, will allow that.