Hiring a head coach was one thing Ryan Poles didn’t seem to learn at GM school in Kansas City.
The Chiefs hired three head coaches in Poles’ 13 seasons in the personnel department. After striking out with Todd Haley, who’d reached the Super Bowl as the Cardinals’ offensive coordinator, and veteran retread Romeo Crennel, they swung for the fences in 2013, needing just four days to hire Andy Reid, who had made the playoffs in nine of 14 seasons with the Eagles.
When the Bears hired Poles as their general manager in 2022, he hired his first coach so quickly that he and Matt Eberflus were introduced to the media at Halas Hall on the same day.
Even then, Eberflus seemed like an unusual, suspicious choice. No. 1, he was one of the coaches the Bears had initially interviewed before hiring Poles. No. 2, he was hired less than 48 hours after Poles himself was hired. It seemed odd that a first-time GM with the opportunity of a lifetime would find such a critical hire not only so quickly but at Halas Hall of all places.
No. 3, Eberflus was a client of agent Trace Armstrong, the former Bears defensive end who also happened to be Poles’ agent.
It looked like an arranged deal, as if the Bears hired Poles on the condition of him hiring Eberflus. Poles emphatically denied that. In fact, when he was asked at his intro-ductory news conference if he could have done a more expansive search for his first head coach, he was almost defiant.
“I was given that opportunity. I found him,” Poles said, pointing to Eberflus on the dais.
Poles’ argument was that his search had begun long before he was hired, that he had spent years defining the key traits of a successful head coach.
“Leadership, poise, emotional intelligence and energy,” Poles said. “When Matt walked through the door to interview . . . even without knowing [him, he] just started checking off all the boxes. He described a detailed plan that he had. He talked about building relationships with players and setting a new standard and, most importantly, he wanted to do that with the Chicago Bears.”
Eberflus flopped, not only because he didn’t exhibit many of the qualities Poles admired that got him hired but because there’s so much more to the job than leadership, poise and emotional intelligence — like hiring offensive coordinators, and game day. It’s not as if Eber-flus was a victim of bad timing or dealt a bad hand or made a scapegoat, which happens in the NFL. He fired himself as much as any recent Bears coach has, and that’s saying something.
Eberflus’ failure was a Poles failure, which puts the focus back on Poles’ ability to hire the right guy, a test of his evaluation of the traits that make a successful coach and a test of his own intuition — knowing the right guy when he sees him.
This isn’t the first knock on his hiring résumé. Poles also was actively involved in the hiring process for a new offensive coor-dinator after Luke Getsy was fired. He endorsed the hiring of Shane Waldron, who also flopped.
And sticking with Eberflus last year when he could have lined up an offensive head coach for quarterback Caleb Williams from the start now counts as a Poles miss as well — certainly a missed opportunity. He had a chance to take his own big swing at Jim Harbaugh and declined. (“I haven’t talked to Jim,” Poles said after last season. “He’s the coach at Michigan.”)
As it turned out, mismatching a defensive head coach with Williams was a key factor in Eberflus’ demise. When Eberflus failed to call a timeout after Williams was sacked with 32 seconds left in the fourth quarter Thursday against the Lions, the rookie, already on a roll, could have bailed out his coach by efficiently responding to the urgency of the moment. Instead, he dawdled, and the resulting failure was an embarrassment for Eberflus that ignited a firestorm of nationwide criticism and sealed his fate.
Would Harbaugh — or any other offensive head coach — have better handled a not-uncommon predicament, either by calling timeout or having Williams better prepared to respond in the moment? Uh . . . yes.
One thing’s for sure: Poles is in no position to argue. He has lost the benefit of the doubt. That’s what makes the upcoming hire so critical, presuming it’s Poles’ hire to make. He has to show a trait that is universally invaluable in any field: that he learns from his mistakes.
Poles did that after missing on wide receiver Chase Claypool, acquiring proven veteran DJ Moore in the trade with the Panthers for the No. 1 overall pick in 2023. But with Eberflus’ replacement, the stakes are much higher.
One big difference this time: After an unusually short hiring process with Eberflus, Poles now has an unusually long six weeks or more for his second hire. For a measured, even-tempered GM who values practicality, guards against group-think and avoids impulsivity, maybe what Poles needs more than anything else is time. Now he has it.
Unless, of course, there’s an Andy Reid out there. Then you have to pounce and know when to take advantage of an opportunity.
They probably don’t teach that in GM school, either. That, apparently, you have to learn on your own.