Four years after Ryan Poles was preparing to run his first draft as Chicago Bears general manager at Halas Hall, his first class in Chicago is being judged with the benefit of time. The 2022 NFL Draft is now far enough in the rearview that all of the players the Bears selected in it have moved beyond their rookie contracts.
That timing matters because the Bears’ first draft under Poles is no longer a set of projections or post-draft grades. It is a record. Safety Jaquan Brisker and cornerback Kyler Gordon were the first two picks of the Poles era in Chicago, and Gordon is one of three players from that class to earn a second contract. Four years on, that is one of the clearest signs the class produced real NFL value.
Poles said before the 2022 draft began that the Bears had run countless simulations and had metrics ready to help inform their decisions, but he also drew a line between data and blind trust in a report. Leaning too far into paper evaluations, he said, was “playing with fire a little bit.” His own baseline, he said, was simple: “My foundation at the end of the day,” is taking a good football player because he had watched the tape and there was proof.
That view helps explain how this class is being measured now. The framework the Bears are using judges a draft hit differently depending on where a player was selected, with different standards for Round 1, top 10; Round 1, picks 11-32; Rounds 2-3; and Round 4. It is a practical way to ask not just whether a team drafted useful players, but whether it got the kind of return that should be expected at each slot.
By that standard, the 2022 group has already delivered enough to warrant a serious look, even before any larger argument about the roster Poles was building. Gordon’s second contract gives the Bears one answer. Brisker’s status, along with the rest of the class moving beyond rookie deals, gives the evaluation sharper edges. The draft Poles oversaw as a first-time general manager is no longer an exercise in anticipation. It is one of the ways his first years in Chicago will be remembered.
The open question is not whether the Bears found any useful players in 2022. It is whether the class ultimately met the standard Poles set for himself when he trusted the tape, the simulations and the metrics, and tried to avoid the kind of overreliance he warned could end in trouble.