KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Bears’ draft was a big surprise — and a big swing by general manager Ryan Poles.
Poles went into the offseason with the coveted No. 1 pick and traded back twice before picking Tennessee offensive tackle Darnell Wright at No. 10 on Thursday. It was a gutsy move to go from having his choice of any prospect to taking an offensive lineman who wasn’t projected to go quite that high, and even Wright wasn’t expecting it.
“I don’t know if I’m going to be much interactive right now,” he said minutes after the Bears selected him. “I’m in shock.”
He wasn’t the only one.
After trading out of the top pick and sliding to No. 9 in a deal with the Panthers last month, Poles had several options when that spot came up Thursday. Top offensive tackle and logical Bears target Paris Johnson, from Ohio State, was off the board at No. 6, but Georgia’s star defensive tackle Jalen Carter was available, as was Iowa pass rusher Lukas Van Ness and Oregon cornerback Christian Gonzalez.
Poles took a call from the Eagles, picking 10th, when the Bears were on the clock and swapped spots with them in exchange for a fourth-round pick next year. He had no problem with them swooping in to take Carter.
Even if Poles was determined to get offensive line help, Northwestern’s Peter Skoronski and Georgia’s Broderick Jones were typically ranked ahead of Wright. Wright also is coming off a season in which he was a full-time starter for the Volunteers at right tackle.
“The teams do this for a living… they know what they’re doing,” Wright said. “I’m just happy they believed in me and saw what a lot of people saw, but a lot of people maybe didn’t. I’m just happy that they believed in me, really.”
He believed he had top-10 talent, but said it “just took the right team to see that.” He added that he is “just scratching the surface of what I can be.”
Wright worked out for the Bears in Knoxville, Tenn., about three weeks ago and struck a strong relationship with offensive line coach Chris Morgan. Poles and coach Matt Eberflus made Morgan a fixture of their pre-draft scouting tour.
But ultimately the pick is Poles’ responsibility, and while he’s asking for some trust on this pick, he is a former offensive lineman who specializes in the position. Revamping that unit has been a priority since he took the job, but his resources were limited in his first year.
He and Eberflus have plenty more work to do in that department, starting with sorting out where Wright and incumbent starting left tackle Braxton Jones will play.
Jones was one of the Bears’ success stories last season when he quickly locked down that job after they picked him in the fifth round out of Southern Utah. He struggled at times, but started every game.
Wright, 6-foot-6, 335 pounds, began his college career at right tackle, then started at left tackle his junior season in 2021. He also played some guard and said he is confident he’ll thrive at any position.
Teams don’t usually draft offensive linemen this high, though, unless they envision them as fixtures at left tackle.
Jones and the Bears have been open about him needing to get stronger, and Eberflus said last month they’d consider moving him to right tackle depending on what they did in the draft.
Poles bet big on himself by trading down from No. 1 and made peace with the reality that the move put the Bears out of range for the draft’s elite prospects.
He and Eberflus believed that quarterback Justin Fields had more potential than any of the players they could’ve picked at No. 1 — “We made a good decision,” Eberflus said — and Poles said it was “not an easy thing” to give up a shot at defensive stars like Alabama pass rusher Will Anderson.
The Panthers used the No. 1 pick they got from the Bears to take Alabama quarterback Bryce Young, and the Texans followed by taking quarterback C.J. Stroud from Ohio State. The Texans also traded up to take Anderson third.
Johnson was an obvious fit for the Bears, but they never got a chance at him. While he was widely projected to be available at the Bears’ spot, the Cardinals — after trading back from No. 3 — traded up to No. 6 to get him.
Illinois star cornerback Devon Witherspoon went to the Seahawks one spot ahead of Johnson, taking him off the Bears’ board as well. Corner remains a serious need for them to address Friday, when they have two second-round picks and a third.
Poles can live with any of the players he missed out on surging to stardom as long as he’s correct about Wright and his certainty about Fields is validated. It’s a defining draft for him, though, especially when he started out at No. 1. Whether or not he got it right will have enormous effect on whether he steers the Bears out of the bottom of the NFL.