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PHOENIX — Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles stopped short of telegraphing his approach to next month’s draft. But if you were wearing your read-between-the-lines glasses Monday at the NFL’s spring meetings, Poles sure seemed to offer some detailed guidelines for how he and his talent evaluation staff will assess the possibility of drafting All-American defensive tackle Jalen Carter.
Interested in the talent? Sure. Who wouldn’t be? Carter is an athletic freak and a mountain of a man, 6-foot-3 and 313 pounds of pure disruption in the middle of a defensive line. The Bears defense needs more help up front. More edge. More strength. More teeth. More disruption.
So, yes, the idea of adding a potential impact playmaker like Carter, who many around the league have considered one of the top three talents in this draft class, seems tempting — especially with the No. 9 overall pick, if Carter were to slide that far. But the Carter evaluation has always been complex and became even more so over the past month.
“It’s a big puzzle,” Poles said during a relaxed session on the Paradise Lawn at the Arizona Biltmore.
Two weeks ago, Poles indicated the Bears were planning to bring Carter to Lake Forest during the pre-draft process to further their evaluation. That’s still part of the plan.
But folded within some of the philosophical generalities the GM shared Monday were hints the Bears might be more anxious about the risks of drafting Carter than they are excited about the potential rewards.
[ [Don’t miss] Who will the Chicago Bears select at No. 9? Brad Biggs’ NFL mock draft 1.0. ]
Carter was booked in Athens-Clarke County in Georgia four weeks ago after he was arrested on misdemeanor charges of racing and reckless driving in connection with a fatal car accident in January that took the lives of Bulldogs teammate Devin Willock and Georgia recruiting staffer Chandler LeCroy.
On March 16, Carter pleaded no contest to both charges and was hit with a $1,000 fine and ordered to perform 80 hours of community service.
For a player who already had question marks within his scouting report around league circles for potential maturity and motivation issues, the legal transgression registered somewhere between notable and entirely bothersome.
Then at Georgia’s pro day March 15, Carter showed up overweight and couldn’t complete his on-field drills due to cramping. Poles and Bears coach Matt Eberflus were in attendance that day and you can bet they made new notes in the “preparation habits” section of Carter’s file.
Furthermore, as the Bears continue to examine Carter’s past, they must also project his future, making an educated guess on how he will handle everything that comes with being a professional football player. The fame. The fortune. The work demands. All the intensity.
The goal isn’t just to grab a starter for the next couple seasons. It’s to develop a star worthy of a big second contract.
As far as the “big puzzle” Poles referenced, he made it clear that with every prospect the Bears examine, they trace all the way back to an individual’s high school days, judging how he handled his recruitment and assessing how his college career evolved.
“Sometimes there are red flags that pop up,” Poles said. “Then you have to sit down with different parts of your organization and say, ‘Does this guy fit what we’re trying to do?’ You look at the risk. You balance that. And again, for us, being so young (right now) we want to make sure we’re keeping a good culture to maintain this as we go.”
Asked a little while later whether the Bears locker room had more sturdy leadership now than a year ago to potentially absorb more of a risk with reliable veterans that could keep a young player like Carter on task, Poles again tapped the brakes.
Poles acknowledged the maturity he felt from his leaders last season. “At the same time,” he said, “we also want to be careful. We’re still young and impressionable. So it’s making sure we continue to bring a good core group in. That’s important. I think maybe down the road, where maybe you want to take a risk like that, the locker room begins to run itself. Then you can take those chances. Right now, we need both. We need talent. At the same time, I’m still going to be a little bit cautious of bringing in the wrong type of person.”
Interpret that however you’d like. This is, after all, March in the NFL where lies are told often, driven by strategy and self-interest. So maybe the Bears are simply trying to run a play fake on other teams who might be inclined to jump past them for the chance to draft Carter. Perhaps on the last weekend of April, Poles will be introducing Carter at the dais inside the Halas Hall press room and touting him as everything the Bears need from a talent perspective and expressing the comfort the entire organization felt at the end of their evaluation process.
Or perhaps Poles was shooting straight Monday and emphasizing how critical it is for the Bears to invest this top-10 pick wisely and practically on a highly productive and low-maintenance player who can fit easily into the culture without costing anyone in the leadership hierarchy a wink of sleep.
“When we get back from here,” Poles said, “we’ll put it all on the table and we’ll figure it out.”
Part of that, of course, will involve sorting through the entire draft board and understanding there are other highly talented players that will be available for the Bears at No. 9 — or even a bit lower, if they decide to trade down.
Poles acknowledged the needs on offensive line, which brings Northwestern’s Peter Skoronski, Ohio State’s Paris Johnson and Georgia’s Broderick Jones into the conversation. The Bears also need to enliven their pass rush, and would be wise to earmark a few edge rushers they really like.
On top of that, Carter may come off the board well before the Bears even go on the clock for the first time.
Still, after emphatically pledging on his first day on the job to build the Bears back up through the draft, Poles knows what will be at stake for him over a 46-hour period in late April.
“We know we have a long ways we have to go to get this roster to where it needs to be,” Poles said Monday.
Still, he’s eager to continue the preparation process for that big challenge.
“It’s just adding to the core of players that we want to win with here for a long period of time,” he said. “We have some needs that we have to fill. But again, it’s about staying disciplined and really using the draft board and the value system we have to do the right thing in the draft. This continues to set it up and set it up for this long journey that we’re on.”
There will be riddles to solve and difficult decisions to make. That’s why every GM job in the league has such a high degree of difficulty. Poles understands as much and continues showing a heightened attention to detail in the final stages of the pre-draft process.
