Ryan Poles knows Bears need WRs, but he won't reach

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It’s no secret, the Bears need wide receiver help. You know it. I know it. Your grandmother’s hair stylist knows it. And Ryan Poles knows it too.

That need is highlighted when you take a look at the wide receivers room and notice that the team only has two guys listed at 6’2” or taller, Isaiah Coulter and Equanimeous St. Brown. Neither man is expected to step in to be the starting “X” receiver, a role usually assumed by a big-bodied player. So, again, it’s a hole that the Bears will need to fill.

“Yeah, you're aware of it,” Poles said. “So you're going to look for it.”

But Poles is not going to let that one positional need radically alter the Bears’ draft board. Or at least he says he won’t.

“It has to be there and it has to be there at the right level,” Poles said. “And I think that's like the biggest takeaway, is, like, you can talk yourself into anything at this point. That's why I'm not overcooking this board.

“I'm taking a step back after today because I think sometimes you keep staring at it and you keep sliding guys around and doing crazy stuff. But in terms of being specific, yeah you're looking to identify (an ‘X’ receiver) but the key is making sure it's in the right value on the board.”

You could interpret this a variety of ways.

It could mean that if a big-bodied receiver, like George Pickens or Treylon Burks or Christian Watson, is available at No. 39, the Bears will swoop on that guy to fill a big area of need. Or, if those guys are unavailable, they’ll pass on WR with their first two picks, opting for a player like Alec Pierce in the third round. Or maybe the Bears kick the can all the way down to Day 3, staying true to their draft board in the process.

Poles knows he needs to put Justin Fields in a better position to succeed, but he also knows there are several ways to do that, beyond providing him with a new “X” receiver.

“I think anytime you just improve the team overall, you’re helping all of the players out,” Poles said. “That can look different. You could say he needs receivers, receivers, receivers, but he needs blocking too, and he also needs balance, in terms of running the ball efficiently and getting that done up front. Then you can do some play action pass stuff. You can do different things.

“It all touchesー turnovers, maybe a returner to flip the field, to score more points. So, it’s all connected and that’s really why the mindset is really to get the best players on this team as possible, and why if I get too lopsided, ‘I gotta do this specific thing,’ I think that’s where you lead into big mistakes.”

Of course, when you’re just days away from the start of the draft, it’s probably not wise to take anything a GM says as gospel. This is when organizations put up smoke screens to mask their true intentions, so public remarks can be misleading. But if you want to read into Poles’ comments before he enters the War Room, it sounds like the Bears aren’t going to reach to fill a specific hole, especially since they have plenty of holes to fill. Instead, they’re going to let the draft come to them, trust their evaluations, and not over-extend beyond the framework of those evaluations.

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