Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show
Ryan Poles won't stray from 'best player available' approach in NFL Draft
24 Feb 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is Ryan Poles' philosophy on the NFL Draft?
This is Rahimi Harrison-Grody on 104.3 The Score.
We're listening to Ryan Poles' press conference from the Combine. It is brought to you by your local Hyundai dealers. Let's resume.
Yeah, philosophically, I feel the same. It's going to be the best player available. I know that may not be the most popular thing because people see kind of like on my board have yellow tags where we need to fill in. But at the same time, I do believe, especially in early rounds like one, you really got to stick to the best player available. We saw that last year.
I know there's a lot of questions like, yeah, Cole, why would you take Colston? I think we found out that it helped us along the way. So we'll continue to lean in that philosophy.
How tricky is it to navigate the linebacker position with some of the injuries?
Yeah, it's really difficult. We spent a lot of time working through that process.
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Chapter 2: How does Ryan Poles evaluate players during the draft process?
There's some unknowns there. There's some projections, just in terms of return time. And then you want to know, is that athlete going to return to be the same player he was before? Could they go downhill? So there's a lot of projections, and that makes it a little bit difficult.
But I think that's when you lean into versatility, flexibility, and making sure that you get the right person in the room to make sure that that group can be filled out the best they can.
Yeah, I think the big one, and it's not just in Kansas City, you can look across the league.
And it sounds really simple, but you want to take a good football player that meets the criteria that you're looking for in terms of culture fits. play style, intelligence, all of those things. You really want to lean into that. I think sometimes you can get caught in flashy.
You're trying to, you know, that guy should have went in the top 15 and he slid because of this reason, but we'll fix that. I think you want a good football player that matches the DNA that you're looking for.
I didn't mean to say that on the air, but let's pause it.
my mic was off so no if you want to stop it let's just say stop it and they'll stop it right guys everybody's on board we're good stop it makes it sound like it's condescending like the old dick a segment on espn where he'd say stop it okay pause how about that is that work yeah which is something it's like stacy king with the telestrator let's go ahead and pause that right there you're just going to pause that right there there you go that is that is where i got that from because stacy does it all the time so can i get my signature on that poster now okay good
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Chapter 3: What challenges does Ryan Poles face with the linebacker position?
Okay, so that's big to me that Brian Polsetti wants to still go with best player available at 25, and he knows that's not what everybody loves. I understand why he wanted to use Colston Loveland as the comp here, although I actually think the Bears needed another tight end who is more known to be a pass catcher in his arsenal than what Cole Komet was known for.
So I think that those are two different roles that we're seeing with Colston Loveland and Cole Komet. If a best player available is another receiver at 25, I'm not real sure how that would work.
I completely agree with Ryan Poles, especially in early rounds about taking best player available. Better example than Colston Loveland would actually be, I was going to say Colston Montgomery, but that joke's passed. It would actually be Luther Burden III, because I think the Luther Burden III was more of a head-scratcher, eyebrow-raising pick in the draft last year than Colston Loveland.
Everyone could see them taking a tight end because of Ben Johnson's offense and how things work. It's like, oh, is it going to be Colston Loveland? Is it going to be Tyler Warren? But when that Luther Burton III came in, wait a minute, they already have... And you just go down the list of DJ Moore and Rome and all the other guys. I think the biggest thing here is to understand...
that there's so many good players at so many different positions that at 25, someone's probably going to fall to them. And it's probably going to be better than what they thought they were going to get at 25.
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Chapter 4: How does Ryan Poles handle injuries in the team?
That's usually how it works late first round.
I also think that Ryan Poles is, for the first time in a long time, showing up at the Combine, he can have a little pride. In his draft, not only the fact that the Bears won, there is that. He had a good draft year last year. Colston Loveland, hit. Luther Burden, hit. Ozzie Trapillo, hit. Kyle Menungai, hit. Still in question, Shamar Turner, hit. Reuben Hippolyte, Zay Frazier, and Luke Newman.
But he had at least four guys who made big contributions to the roster last year. So when he steps up there and says, best player available, I don't think we roll our eyes as much as maybe we would have in the past. And by the way, most GMs are going to say, best player available. It doesn't necessarily mean they take the best player available.
I think there was an example of best player available at 39 with Luther Burton.
Chapter 5: What are the implications of the best player available strategy at pick 25?
I don't necessarily know if the best player available, once again, at 25 is a receiver. That's the real test, right? If you see that the best player available in the draft is a position you absolutely know they are stocked at, I don't necessarily know if they sincerely subscribe to that concept.
Right. They could definitely turn and say, well, we thought that player was the best player available, even if we all think it's a wide receiver. So, yeah, I think that they would pivot unless something happens in the wide receiver room. And we know that there is one person who we are monitoring and his name is DJ Moore in terms of although there hasn't been much talk about that recently.
You still have to keep your eye on DJ Moore.
You do have to keep your eye on DJ. You also know that he is a possibility for a restructure of a contract because he's got so many years to work with. So, you know, that's part of it, too. The Bears don't have a ton of long-term deals where they could rework and help get some room under the salary cap.
Check this out, Layla. If they restructured the contract of DJ Moore, they could save $17.5 million. So that's a big deal.
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Chapter 6: How does Ryan Poles assess the current roster and its needs?
And that was from Fishbane's article. Moore, Sweat, and Grady Jarrett, if they were to restructure their contracts, that would create $33 million.
um old joe tooney jonah jackson 14 million dollar for for potential contract restructure we haven't talked about that much yet so i'm glad you brought that up well because joe tooney was a restructure right it was like an extension and then they worked with the existing years to be able to oh when they brought him in correct initially yes he had he was traded for then he had existing years on his deal then they decided to extend him to help kick that out i think
Kick it. I think the restructure is important because of what's going to happen when Caleb gets paid. But also, you restructure, you make a key cut. Sorry, Tremaine Edmonds. All of a sudden, you've got real estate that you didn't have, a runway to add to your roster and improve your roster that you didn't have. And I'm a big fan of kicking the can down the road in the NFL.
Best example, Howie Roseman. That man just keeps kicking the can down the road. And it's looked pretty good for those Eagles.
I'm glad you brought up Tremaine Edmonds as well because I want to get to that. So Ryan Poles was asked a question about the linebacker situation. And that is a very injured group right now.
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Chapter 7: What financial strategies are being considered for player contracts?
And you consider Noah Sewell out with the Achilles. TJ Edwards had to be carted off the field. He had the broken leg, my goodness sake. And I thought there was a really good comment that Ryan Polson made when he said, you know, we're trying to figure out timelines. And then also, when they return, are they going to be the same player? When you heard that, who did you think of?
My initial thought was Sewell because of the Achilles, because Achilles can't hurt people. Did you guys both think of TJ?
Oh, absolutely. 100%.
Because TJ had not just one, but two debilitating injuries throughout the season. And it wasn't even just the broken leg. You know, he was dealing with multiple injuries. And he wasn't a player known for injuries until this past year. So that was also something that came to mind.
Chapter 8: How does Ryan Poles plan to navigate the upcoming draft and combine?
So when you heard that comment about the linebacker, what did you think?
Yeah, no, that was the first thing I thought. And, of course, you think about Tremaine Edmonds and the possibility of him getting waived because that's what we've been hearing from everybody. But, yeah, no, I worry about T.J. Edwards. The good thing about T.J. Edwards, though, is he doesn't necessarily depend on, like, high athleticism and speed to do his job that a lot of what he does well.
And he has all that, but he's more instincts and being in the right place I always go to Lance Briggs as an example. Briggs, obviously, a better player than T.J. Edwards, but Briggs didn't have that outstanding speed, but he was quick as hell, and he knew where to be on the field at all times. That's T.J.
Edwards. The instinct plays in this. Look, they understand that they have a lot of injury questions that they will not have answered until probably after the regular season starts.
Well, in 847 on our text line says, the fact that the easiest to most obvious cut this year, Edmund, hasn't happened yet is interesting. Polls in years past has made these moves prior to this week. There may be other plans for him. Trade extension, just weird he hasn't been cut yet. So this is his last year of his deal.
So I don't necessarily know that an extension is on the table there when you're in your last year like that.
Well, Darnell Wright's the guy that you've got to think about, too. And maybe he will be asked about. I'm curious if Darnell Wright will come up in this conversation, because he is a candidate for a potential extension. And just to keep people refreshed on Tremaine Edmonds, if they were to release him, that's a $15 million cap saving. Cole Komet would be an $8.4 million cap saving.
And while we're at it, DeAndre Swift, number three with a bullet, a $7.47 million.
I'll take that team you added on the end of the seven.
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