Chiefs GM Brett Veach calls Bears’ Ryan Poles ‘a tremendous communicator’

INDIANAPOLIS – For new Bears general manager Ryan Poles, it all begins with communication.

When a new GM comes to a team in January after the regular season, the team will usually keep many of the scouts from the previous regime on board at least through the draft. The bulk of the scouting work is done during the fall when scouts can go watch college prospects. It wouldn’t make sense to fire everybody in January, just a few months before free agency and the draft.

The scouts Poles inherited were here under former Bears general manager Ryan Pace, but Poles loved the conversations he had with them in recent weeks. Poles said the processes they used might have been different from years past, but the discussions were insightful. Poles was so impressed he told his scouts that he was proud of them.

“As a new GM, you come in ... you’re evaluating them, you’re evaluating the evaluators,” Poles said. “At the end of it, the thing that stood out to me is there’s a group of really, really good people.”

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It wouldn’t be a surprise for Poles to keep some of those scouts from the Pace regime. Poles has been in their shoes before.

In his decade-plus with the Kansas City Chiefs, Poles worked under three general managers: Scott Pioli, John Dorsey and current GM Brett Veach. He went through hard times before Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes came along. All along the way, he was picking up cues from his bosses.

Veach called Poles a “well versed” front office veteran.

“He’s done a lot in his career in regards to both scouting in college and the pro side,” Veach said this week at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. “With that, he’s a tremendous communicator. [He] understands the inner workings of a personnel department and a coaching staff.”

Veach believes the Chiefs have been so successful because he has been in lock step with head coach Andy Reid all along. Veach knows Poles understands just how important that relationship is with the head coach.

The Poles and Eberflus relationship is only just beginning that building process. But what Poles likes about his new head coach is he doesn’t hide anything. He says what he wants and he doesn’t make it a secret. Poles knows exactly the type of players Eberflus wants.

“It’s aligned,” Poles said of their thinking. “And everything that he said in his [introductory press conference] is exactly the way he wants it. And you can see that from where he came from. But it’s fast, physical, it’s guys that attack. Relentless. It’s guys that have the endurance that can do it for a long period of time.”

The challenges for a first-year general manager are probably not the challenges that a rookie GM is anticipating. That will be the biggest adjustment for Poles as he takes on his new role, at least according to Veach.

Everybody thinks life as a general manager is all about scouting players and building a roster. It is, but oftentimes it’s also about dealing with personal issues among players and staff, and putting out fires.

“There’s a lot of stress off the field,” Veach said of the job. “Players go through a lot. Their families go through a lot. Our families go through a lot. So I think it’s one thing to, in your mind, think [issues] will come up and we’ll deal with it. But I think it’s intense, it pulls you away a lot of times from the office.”

Having a great staff makes that easier. Poles understands that after all those years helping out Veach. That’s why Poles brought on assistant general manager Ian Cunningham. The job is about learning to delegate, too.

“He’s been a huge part for me only because getting pulled in so many different directions, that’s very new to me,” Poles said of Cunningham. “Having him out in front and working with our staff, if I get pulled out of a meeting, he keeps the ball rolling.”