An alarming Chicago Bears trend made obvious by one top 100 list

Justin Fields and Tremaine Edmunds have been on the list in recent years and GM Ryan Poles also brought in Kevin Byard and Keenan Allen, who had been on it more than once.

There's a problem here, however, and it has nothing to do with snubs or where they're ranked.

Poles has gone through four drafts now and not one single player he selected has ever appeared on this list.

Former GM Ryan Pace drafted Johnson and Fields. Give Poles credit for obtaining Sweat, Moore, Thuney and last year Allen, but each came through trades. The Bears had to give up something to get them.

When they signed Byard, he'd been through years with the Titans as a top player and then wastefully discarded by the Eagles. Poles recognized talent here.

What Poles has not done is draft a single player who developed under his coaches and made the list.

Even his predecessor, Pace, had running back Jordan Howard make the list for 2017 out of his second draft in 2016. Safety Adrian Amos made it in 2018 out of Pace's third draft, followed by Eddie Jackson in 2019 out of Pace's fourth draft.

Not that anyone's keeping score, but the Bears managed to draft and develop three players who made this top 100 list while Poles had no players drafted and developed for the list. Not that anyone's keeping score, but that's rather lopsided.

Drafting players and hiring coaches who can develop players actually are tasks associated with general managers.

Any GM can go out and find players in free agency if they have the cash, and usually free agents are flawed players or their previous team would retain them. Sometimes they're just too highly priced, too, but teams can almost always find ways to retain the top players they drafted but it's costly.

Trey Smith of the Chiefs was a good example this past year.

Pace definitely had his faults. Plunging the team into salary cap hell was one. They couldn't even retain Amos or a few other players who would have been ideal to keep because of his cap failures.

However, at least Pace found three players in the draft who someone deemed a top 100 guy by Year 4.

Poles has some making up to do, and also still needs a contract extension.