Greg Gabriel on the Bears DL in 2023

Yeah, I do believe the Bears are a year or more behind teams like you mention.  And obviously if a team fails at the draft it is game-over.  But, if the Bears do have a great talent evaluating apparatus in place (I think they probably do.  Time will tell on that though) then they can leverage that into sustained winning.  Buying players at full-retail prices is great if it is used to enhance a roster that already has a constant inflow of solid young draft talent - rather than a desperate attempt to fix a team that can't draft well.  I do believe that we'll know a lot more about the Bears and the draft after the upcoming '24 draft.  At that point Poles will have ~31 of his own draft picks on the team - and we can see who he signs from the Bears roster for a 2nd contract (like Fields if he proves to be worth that, this season).  Then the FA guys are fitted around that as needed.  

You know what always get me ticked?  I watch (every single year) how mid-round or later draft picks are getting bigtime FA contracts.  Why does it get to me?  Because I want to see Poles draft those guys himself - every single year.  Then you have that talent that is young, cheap and ascending - rather than older, expensive and about to decline.  Sure, add some of those full-retail guys.  Even the best teams need a percentage of them.  It will be interesting to see what this roster looks like after next year's draft and FA.  We should have a thread that focuses on those 31 players drafted at that point, along with the players Poles hands out 2nd contracts too from our own team.  We will have a lot of players going out of contract by then...