Bears general manager Ryan Poles didn’t see the hubbub surrounding quarterback Caleb Williams throwing a ball toward a net — and missing his target — on social media last month. He was made aware when the clip became national talk-show fodder.
It didn’t surprise him. Not much does anymore.
‘‘It’s Chicago,’’ Poles said. ‘‘I think, especially nationally, like, you want to literally poke the Bear.’’
The Bears have been deserving of pokes the last three seasons. When Poles was hired, he vowed to ‘‘take the [NFC] North and never give it back.’’ Instead, the Bears went 15-36 and were outscored by 216 points in those seasons.
Rather than get rid of Poles, however, the Bears empowered him to fire head coach Matt Eberflus the day after Thanksgiving and lead the search for his replacement.
A few months after Poles picked Ben Johnson, the Bears gave him a contract extension. Like Johnson’s, Poles’ deal expires after five years.
Contractually and otherwise, Poles is tied to the performances of Johnson and Williams, starting with the Bears’ season opener Monday night against the Vikings. The Bears are facing headwinds of their own making. They never have had a true franchise quarterback. The last time they hired a truly successful coach was 21 years ago. The last time they won a playoff game was 15 years back.
Pairing Williams with the offensive-minded Johnson might change that.
‘‘There’s a level of belief,’’ Poles said in an interview last month with the Sun-Times. ‘‘I think that’s what can, y’know, break a trend.’’
The Bears have thought that before. They paired Mitch Trubisky with a new head coach in Year 2, then did the same with Justin Fields. Neither first-round quarterback lasted more than four seasons with the team — nor did the head coaches.
It’s not lost on Poles that firing Eberflus put Williams on the same head-coach timeline. The only question is whether he fares any better than the Bears’ previous two quarterbacks did.
‘‘With anything in life, we all want consistency, we all want a long runway with the same group of people in the same job,’’ Poles said. ‘‘You look at it, and there’s a rhythm to that. And, you know, a while back I said, like, ‘I’m here to break that.’ ’’
Johnson is, too. The Bears talked all last season about wanting to be coached harder, and the intense Johnson delivered during training camp.
‘‘With all the talk about accountability at the end of last year, this was teed up for him to go in and really lean into it,’’ Poles said.
When the starting offense did well in the Bears’ first preseason game, that was an important step. It was the first time the intensity of Johnson’s ways bore fruit.
‘‘The best thing that can happen is to get results,’’ Poles said, ‘‘because then you’re like, ‘Well, I’m gonna keep doing that, right?’ ’’
It won’t happen unless Williams becomes a star. In retrospect, Poles said, Williams lacked some of the college experience that benefitted his rookie peers last season. He played for only one college head coach and in one system — albeit at Oklahoma and USC. The Commanders’ Jayden Daniels, the Offensive Rookie of the Year, ran different schemes at Arizona State and LSU. The Broncos’ Bo Nix, who led all rookies in passing yards, ran different systems at Auburn and Oregon. They came into the NFL with bigger Rolodexes than Williams did.
‘‘There’s just different timelines for different people based on your background, where you came from and what you were taught,’’ Poles said. ‘‘So I think it’s a little bit of faith and also belief.’’
Poles knows where faith in young quarterbacks has landed the Bears in the past. He understands why fans might make too big a deal of Williams’ training-camp performance: They’ve seen it before in the team’s many quarterback debacles.
‘‘You’re always aware of history,’’ Poles said. ‘‘At the same time, I think that can cause overcorrections and anxiety and then drive you away from where you really need to be.’’
Some of that history, however, is only months old. Last season, the Bears let one misplayed Hail Mary snowball into a 10-game losing streak. Johnson spent the offseason trying to teach resilience, but it’s a trait a team has to earn.
As for their quarterback, Williams does a good job of insulating himself from the outsized attention, Poles said, though it’s impossible for him to drown out all the noise.
‘‘I think with so much going on around here, we have to be very, very conscious of staying present in the moment and just trying to achieve the next goal, trying to have a good practice,’’ Poles said. ‘‘If it’s a bad one, what a great opportunity to learn how to move on.
‘‘You’re gonna have a bad game. You’re gonna have a bad practice. How can you move on to the next thing and lock back in? That’s what elite teams do, and I know that’s something we talk internally about — just keeping the main thing the main thing.’’