Ryan Poles has had some lows during his tenure as General Manager, but even the biggest skeptic has to admit he has just as many massive wins. He is the reason that Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson are on the roster. While he can miss in free agency and the draft just like everyone else, he has also maneuvered the salary cap as well as any GM.
Ryan Poles has handled the Chicago Bears' salary cap perfectly
When he took over the Chicago Bears, he inherited a mess. Former GM Ryan Pace kept digging the hole of dead salary cap deeper and deeper as he tried to get out of the mistakes that he made. He took over the Bears in 2022 and had to make tough decisions to reset the roster.
Under Ryan Poles, here's where the #Bears have ranked in dead cap hits each year
— Jacob Infante (@jacobinfante24) June 20, 2026
• 2022: 1st
• 2023: 14th
• 2024: 26th
• 2025: 32nd
• 2026: 22nd
He shed the bad contracts from Ryan Pace early and has managed the cap very well. Underrated aspect of his tenure pic.twitter.com/fGYt3iu2Mt
He did not take the easy way out, and instead gutted everything down to clean the cap. So, in 2022, they had the most dead money in the NFL. However, in 2023, they already saw the other side. The Bears absorbed the dead money early and quickly came out on the other side. He had the team down to 14th in dead cap hits.
Then, in 2024, the roster started to come into his vision. More of the core was built through the draft, allowing the Bears to spend in free agency without carrying the mistakes of previous regimes. That flexibility became one of the biggest strengths of the roster-building process.
The bad contracts had washed through the salary cap, and an influx of young talent on cheap salaries allowed the team to stay competitive with a clean salary cap. They ranked 26th in dead money. In 2025, they were the lowest in the NFL in dead money. That is quite the turnaround in just three offseasons.
In 2026, they enter the year 22nd in dead cap space. Still, that appears to be about as bad as it gets. Some of this is because Ben Johnson came in and decided to go in another direction with some veterans on the roster. The big one being D.J. Moore.
So, none of this is the result of poor cap management. Instead, it reflects the Bears moving on from players who no longer fit Ben Johnson's plans. More importantly, Chicago is in a position to extend its young core over the next few seasons without having to dig itself out of another salary-cap hole.
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