Chicago Bears: Ryan Poles trades for OL Ryan Bates

Ahead of the new NFL league year, Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles made a trade, acquiring center/guard Ryan Bates.

With the new NFL league year eight days away, Chicago Bears General Manager Ryan Poles is not waiting before he makes additions to the roster. He still has not made the huge decisions yet (does he trade the number one pick or Justin Fields?), but overnight he added an offensive lineman.

Poles made a trade with the Buffalo Bills to acquire center/guard Ryan Bates. In exchange, Poles sent the Chicago Bears’ fifth-round pick, number 142 overall. The trade cannot be made official until the new league year and it is pending a physical.

For Poles, persistence paid off. He signed Bates, who was a restricted free agent, to an offer sheet in 2022. However, the Bills matched the offer and kept him. Now Poles tried again and traded for him.

The interior of the Chicago Bears offensive line was a sore spot in 2023. Lucas Patrick and Cody Whitehair both played center and guard on various occasions due to injuries. However, neither one played well at either position.

Additionally, the Bears have Teven Jenkins. While he is a very good player, he is brittle and missed a ton of games. If Chicago holds onto him this season, they have to be prepared for him to miss games. He has missed 21 of the team’s 51 games in his three seasons.

Bates has played in 73 games in five seasons, starting 19 of them. In 2023, he played in all 17 games but without any starts. He gives the Chicago Bears added depth on the interior.

Poles and the Bears likely go after another lineman, probably a center. The question now is whether he picks one up via free agency or he goes through the draft.

Trade signals another, bigger move on the horizon?

With the trade, the Chicago Bears now have just five picks in the 2024 NFL Draft. Two of those picks are in the top ten of the first round. That includes the number one pick in the draft. They also have a third-round pick and two fourth-round picks.

With the team having several holes to fill, five draft picks will not do the trick. He needs more picks to strengthen the roster. He was in a similar situation in his first year as Chicago Bears GM. He turned five picks into 11 of them. However, most of the picks he had were in the later rounds. Since he was starting the rebuild, that was a good move.

However, now the Chicago Bears are in a situation where they have to win more games. We have to believe that he has something bigger in play.

Of course, Poles has the option of trading the number one pick for a similar haul he received last year. He picked up offensive lineman Darnell Wright, cornerback Tyrique Stevenson, this year’s number one pick, next year’s second-round pick, and wide receiver D.J. Moore.

On the other hand, Poles can trade Fields for a couple of picks. Yet another move could be to trade the ninth pick. While not as valuable as the number one pick, the ninth pick is still valuable. The Bears could receive several picks in return.

Poles has many different options to mull over. Depending on what value he gauged last week for certain trades, he can receive a lot of picks to help improve the team. For now, however, he added offensive line help, something the Chicago Bears needed.