The Chicago Bears broke through for their first division title since 2018 this season, and their reward is beginning their playoff run as the No. 2 seed in the NFC playoffs against the Green Bay Packers on Saturday night. Success is thrilling for a fan base that hasn’t been to the playoffs since 2020 and hasn’t won a playoff game since 2010. But it comes with a cost as other teams try to bring pieces that led to their success to their organization.
According to The Athletic’s Dianna Russini, the Atlanta Falcons are one of those teams interested in the Bears’ secret sauce. While Russini reports that “it’s widely believed around the NFL” that former Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan will become the Falcons’ new President of Football Operations, Ryan could also be leaning on Bears general manager Ryan Poles to find a GM to work underneath him as the two “are very close dating back to their playing days” at Boston College.
With an immediate Bears interest in his ear, it could lead the Falcons to poach Chicago during the hiring process and hire current assistant general manager Ian Cunningham in the coming weeks.
Ryan Poles Could Refer Ian Cunningham for Falcons GM Job
Poles and Ryan played together at Boston College from 2003 to 2007. While Poles went undrafted as an offensive lineman, Ryan was the third overall pick in the 2003 NFL draft, winning the NFL’s Most Valuable Player and Offensive Player of the Year Awards while leading Atlanta to the Super Bowl in 2016.
Hiring Ryan in the POFO role makes sense as the Falcons have only been to the playoffs once since their Super Bowl run and haven’t been back since 2017. While Ryan is an attempt to get back to the glory days, he also has no previous front office experience, which makes sense why he would lean on Poles for advice.
It makes even more sense that Poles would refer to Cunningham as the best candidate for Atlanta’s GM job. Cunningham has been Poles’s right-hand man since he arrived in Chicago for the 2022 season. One of the lead voices in player evaluation and roster management, he was involved in the hiring of Ben Johnson last winter. MMQB’s Albert Breer already reported earlier last week that Cunningham was a name to watch for potential GM openings, but Russini’s report takes it one step further, making it feel imminent that he’ll be on his way out of Chicago.
Things like this happen for successful teams, and the Bears could benefit by getting two third-round draft picks under the league’s reward system for producing minority candidates for higher-level jobs. But it’s also a disappointing development for a team whose trajectory appears to be pointing up. The Bears have reaped the benefits of Cunningham’s contributions for the past four seasons, but it appears the Falcons will be the next team to try to find out what made them so successful.