Report suggests Ryan Poles had no interest at all in Drake Maye

The Chicago Bears are preparing to kickoff the 2025 NFL season on Monday Night Football, with the Minnesota Vikings coming to town for a NFC North Showdown. And it’s a very important year for Ryan Poles, Caleb Williams and the rest of the organization.

But as we continue to countdown the days until kickoff, a new piece from Go Long founder Ty Dunne has revealed some potential shocking revelations within the Bears organization including Caleb Williams and Ryan Poles.

In part one, Dunne breaks down Williams and his rookie season, with sources stating some really bad habits about the quarterback and his work ethic. In part two, Dunne dives into Poles and his tenure so far, speaking on the 2024 NFL Draft.

The piece features some interesting information about scouting quarterbacks other than Williams and it’s revealed that Poles wasn’t a fan of former North Carolina Tar Heels’ quarterback Drake Maye. Here’s part of the story where it shows just how much Poles didn’t like Maye:

Clicker in hand, at the center of the room, Ryan Poles repeatedly hit rewind on errant passes and it didn’t take long for those echoes of “Geez!” to turn into outright laughter. Poles and his confidants were not interested in sparking a substantive conversation about the North Carolina quarterback. This draft meeting resembled a bully in the high school cafeteria seeking toadies — any veneer of scouting objectivity was shed.

Maye escaped free runners, threw at awkward angles, sailed incompletions. At times, the spiral of his ball was off. Other times, the receiver broke in and the ball was thrown out. All funky plays were magnified and mocked to make it appear as if this is exactly who he’d become as a pro quarterback.

Poles chimed in.

“This tape makes my chest tight,” one source recalls the GM saying.

All but a select few scouts broke out in laughter.

Yeesh.

Ryan Poles’ process likely was wrong

There’s no denying that Williams was the No. 1 quarterback prospect going into the draft by almost every major outlet. The consensus was that Williams would be the No. 1 overall pick. And there’s not much of an argument there.

But it’s the process that is the problem here.

The Bears didn’t bring in a quarterback for a top 30 visit and they didn’t even go to Maye’s pro day at North Carolina. Poles was fixated on Williams so much, that he didn’t do all of the homework on the other guys. He even reportedly had J.J. McCarthy as his number two quarterback ahead of Jayden Daniels, Maye, Bo Nix and Michael Penix. That’s not a good process, especially having that No. 1 overall pick and needing to do your homework on everyone.

If this is true, it’s an issue for Poles that needs to be fixed. We know he likes to draft based off of traits and for someone that’s never been a scout to be in this spot, it’s not good.

One Bears scout defended Drake Maye

The piece continues on and is very insightful. But one part that caught my attention was how one scout stood up for Maye and wanted the process to be better:

One brave soul did speak up. Chris White, the team’s assistant director of pro scouting that spring, called out Poles. “We’re dragging this kid through the mud,” he said. North Carolina’s receiving corps was hurting that final ’23 season. White asked his boss to show another game out of fairness. So, he did. Maye started gunning NFL-level throws downfield and White spoke up again. “I like that there,” he said. Two narratives were now clashing. Poles didn’t hit rewind on these plays. Inside the room, one scout recalls the mood turning tense.

After negative plays, Ryan Poles made a wry comment: “Dirt ball there” or “You like that, too?”

Laughter picked back up. The team’s area scout, Ryan Cavanaugh, flatly stated that he didn’t believe Maye was a very good player and Poles jumped in to reset the temperature of the room. “I agree,” he said.

Eventually, the GM set the clicker down. “This guy,” he repeated, “makes my chest tight watching this.”

Case closed. Maye was stacked out of the first round.

“They made fun of him,” says one Bears scout in the room. “They laughed. The GM laughed Drake Maye off the screen, and cut the tape off.”

Time will tell how the careers of these quarterbacks will pan out and this doesn’t mean Williams was the wrong pick. But the process for the general manager needs to be better.