The 2025 NFL Draft is fully in the rearview mirror and with rookie minicamps starting up around the league, the offseason cycle moves onward into the summer.

For the Chicago Bears, the 2025 Draft was a great collaborative process, even if a few top prospects got away from the team. At the end of the day, the Bears came away with eight new players joining the roster and a talented pool of undrafted free agents.

The new additions will be the first new players to join the Ben Johnson led Bears and the draft process was the first real opportunity for the new head coach to work alongside general manager Ryan Poles.

The partnership between Johnson and Poles will be critical for this organization's future after everyone outside the building wanted a full clean out top to bottom this offseason. Instead, the organization gave full faith in Poles and the front office to turn things around with their new head coach.

After going through the first draft process working together, this partnership couldn't been more aligned with what the direction is for this team.

"To Ryan’s credit, he stayed as disciplined as I’ve ever seen in terms of staying true to how we set it up," Johnson explained. "Sometimes that gets hard, sometimes you want to pick for need, but we didn’t necessarily do that. I feel really good about the direction we went and every decision we made along the way."

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Credit does have to go to Poles. When he inherited this team in 2022, the roster was deprived of overall talent not to mention key stars you need to win in this league. Three years later, the roster has the foundation in place with the core leaders.

Over those three seasons, Poles and his team in the front office have learned from their mistakes (and there's been multiple of them) and ironed out a process that has the organization finally headed in the right direction.

"Ryan really is the brains behind that. He's set it all up and you can tell that this group, this organization's been together for a number of years now because it's been running so smoothly," Johnson added. "He’s consistent every single day when he comes in. I think that’s sometimes under looked at times, particularly in this profession."

Not only has Poles impressed Johnson working together the last few months, but Johnson is helping to bring out the best in Poles at the same time.

"Really respect his work ethic, his intelligence, his ability to evaluate and then to have really good conversations where we go back and forth in terms of what we see," Poles said. "He's been a pleasure to work with, I'm grateful for that and our relationship together as we continue to build that through this journey. It's been smooth."

Ryan Poles & Ben Johnson asked what they learned about one another in first draft together.pic.twitter.com/Zr2or5ddR9

— ✶ Ⓜ️????? ▶️ ✶ (@_MarcusD3_) April 27, 2025

This kind of coach-GM relationship and synergy is exactly what the Bears needed. And the best thing this process showed is that Johnson and Poles are going to challenge each other in coming to a decision, not just immediately coming to an agreement.

"It’s spending time and watching tape together to figure out what direction we need to go in," Poles added. "We’re going to have different opinions, we’re going to see players differently, but it’s coming together, watching tape and figuring out what’s best for the organization."

Johnson signed a 5-year contract with the Bears but the details of Poles' contract is not publicly available. Although the expectation outside Halas Hall is that Poles likely received an extension himself to line up with Johnson's tenure, allowing them to work together for the near future. It's clear now that's the best thing for the team.

Bears Ryan Poles explains how the accountability will be different under Ben Johnson compared to what the team dealt with in 2024

He’s going to fix the culture of this team.