David Montgomery makes a fool of Bears' Ryan Poles in Week 3 Monday night thriller

Frugality tends to be a good trait for an NFL general manager. They need to be careful with the contracts they give out to ensure they don't run into salary cap trouble a few years down the road and have to part with an elite player. Sometimes, however, you just have to pay the man what he says he deserves, and that's what Chicago Bears GM Ryan Poles should have done for running back David Montgomery.

We'll never know for sure the details of Poles' offer, but when Montgomery signed with the Detroit Lions in 2023, the rumor was that it was an identical offer in terms of years and total money but that Detroit offered a little bit more guaranteed cash than Poles did. Poles made a business decision with Montgomery's contract, and Montgomery did the same.

Since then, Bears fans have been infuriated with the state of Chicago's run game, especially after Justin Fields was traded and could no longer juice the numbers with his electric scrambles. Chicago's futility in the run game was on full display Sunday, when starting running back D'Andre Swift averaged a meager 2.5 yards per carry.

Fast forward to Monday Night Football, where Bears fans had to sit and watch their former running back have a career game, gaining 151 yards on just 12 carries and scoring a pair of touchdowns. Obviously, this is not the kind of performance Montgomery can put on every week, but it just serves to remind the Bears of what they once had, and what they allowed to leave over a matter of a percentage or two of the salary cap.