Saying a prayer for Bears general manager Ryan Poles
Eulogies usually begin with a prayer, followed at some point by song. The prayer to contextualize the death of, the song to put everything in perspective.
For Bears GM Ryan Poles — although it felt very much like one with the commentary that followed his season-ending press ritual Tuesday — this is not his actual or football eulogy. Not even his Bears eulogy. That day, with his role now officially on-the-clock within the Bears’ Halas’d Halls, will be upon us in the nearer future than the distant. Today, however, it remains the voices, the choir of damnation (Bears Nation), that conveys best why all of us — his supporters, his detractors — are gathered here.
Because, pragmatism. Of why this has become the revenge of the tipping point. No one well enough to be glad. Repeat the refrain.
‘‘But I’m from
Where a king can have offspring
And never lay eyes on their heir.
Oh, it’s painful
But those are the cards that we’re dealt.
We need angels
To help us come and fight all this hell surrounding us.’’
Hood hymns become songs in the key of ‘‘F.’’ Interpreting the last four misery-drenched months of football in this city at the hands of the Bears’ franchise. Another one after the other ones before. But this one, possibly, the worst. The deepest cut. The furthest fall.
(Poles might have been better off had he done a Mike Madigan during his news conference: Take a full three hours to treat the platform as a therapy session, revealing every personal detail connected to why he’s standing in front of us and defending the charges against him.)
One year ago, the pressure that pressed against Poles was different. Predictions of 10, 11 wins. The offensive upgrades with concerns about the offensive line on hold. New offensive coordinator. Giving the current head coach a second, undeserved chance. We knew. But we didn’t want to know. Not really.
We hoped that this ‘‘current circumstance in which we stand’’ part of the story wouldn’t be a part of the story. That this team (he constructed), this franchise (he inherited), this city (he embraced), with this person (an ambitious, young football mind), at this time (in contrast to everything in the recent past), we had turned the page. That this was going to be . . . different
Yet the book of Ryan Poles, as we are in the middle of it (probably closer to the final chapters), has proved itself to be no different (better or worse is up for debate) than the worst-selling memoirs of the sub-unacceptable GMs who preceded him. And, yes, they all have written their own books. No ghostwriters, no co-authors. We call it ‘‘un-fiction.’’
A stream of meaningless games. That’s all he’s ever known. What he stepped into, what he was unable to change. More disappointing than the two-game drop in wins from last season to this one, the 10-game losing streak that will go down as the worst in the team’s history in a season or the unmerciful powerlessness the organization put on visual display after the firing of Matt Eberflus in November is the actuality that Poles didn’t have a parachute-less fallback plan.
One that he knew would get him out of this situation once it arrived. And if anything in history told us everything about the Bears leading up to this, it’s that this situation would arrive.
Making ‘‘thankless’’ arise as the most appropriate term of endearment when it comes to what Poles has to await. Not in just his decision of a head coach but also the other potential HC candidates on the Bears’ radar who will end up going elsewhere.
Anywhere besides here. Either by the Bears’ decision or the coaches’ own. Their success. What they do for and with those other teams, people will indifferently attach to what they could have done for the Bears. Haunted, Poles will be, much the same as he is now by the coaches he passed on last year in his and the Bears’ decision to roll their single-dotted dice on Eberflus.
If the Jags turn things around, if the Raiders turn things around, if the Patriots revert, if the Jets un-Jets. Then there’s the O-line to consecrate. All eyes and blame will be on Poles until next season ends. ‘‘Wanted’’ signs on streetlight poles up and down Michigan Avenue. Backstabbing his last name like chickens eating chicken. Yeah, that key of ‘‘F’’ stands for ‘‘fate.’’
Unfair? Without question. Partially because, more than his predecessors, Poles seemed to at least care in a way they didn’t and tried to do things that incrementally moved the team in the right direction. But backfiring comes with the job, territory, situation and being a part of this organization. It just hits non-McCaskey family members first.
Still, I’ll remain a fan. Or at least a backer. Holding more what he’s up against against him than the decisions he’ll make and what he actually does. Knowing the impossibility of the Bears closing a six- to 10-game difference between themselves and Detroit, Minnesota and Green Bay by 2027 is delusional. That upward progress won’t be enough. That soon for this paper, I’ll be writing his eulogy.
Praying for him.
Because the beauty for Ryan Poles inside all of this hell surrounding us has always been that, with the Bears, there isn’t much further he can fall at this point.