(670 The Score) Bears general manager Ryan Poles did his best Thursday to project calm for his organization following a drama-filled Wednesday in which quarterback Justin Fields criticized the coaching staff – before later retracting that critique – and defensive coordinator Alan Williams abruptly resigned.
Those were just the latest developments for a struggling Bears team that’s 0-2 and preparing for a trip to Kansas City to face the defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs (1-1) on Sunday. Amid what he called “adversity,” Poles did his best to control the situation.
“To hit it straight on, we have adversity right now,” Poles said. “Slow start, 0-2, not where you want to be. We've dealt with life issues. We've dealt with injuries, and that's all real and that's a part of what we do and what we gotta deal with. The beautiful thing about our philosophy here, our organization, is we're solution-oriented. We work together to find these solutions and solve our problems to get everything back on track. To make it really, really clear, I know the outside noise, but no one in our building is panicking. No one is flinching at any situations, not our owner, not our president, our head coach, not myself, none of our players. Everyone is focusing on solving the issues that we have so that we can be a better football team.”
Poles shared little to no detail on Williams’ departure, other than to reiterate that Halas Hall wasn’t raided by authorities Wednesday. Williams cited the need to focus on his family and his health for resigning, but that explanation hasn’t dovetailed with how the Bears have handled his exit. The team issued only a one-sentence press release to announce Williams’ resignation, with no sympathetic tone present as Williams maintains he’s battling a health issue. The Bears also didn’t issue Williams’ statement about his resignation on team letterhead.
There isn’t any criminal activity surrounding Williams’ exit from the Bears, his personal attorney Andrew M. Stroth said in a brief appearance on the Parkins & Spiegel Show on Wednesday afternoon, but the team hasn’t commented on that directly. The Bears have merely maintained that there was no raid of Halas Hall by authorities.
“We try to work in truth, and I know there is a ton of misinformation out there,” Poles said. “Yesterday, we talked about Halas Hall being raided. That's completely false. Don't even know where that came from. Worked with (president) Kevin (Warren) and (chairman) George (McCaskey), all of our leadership, to make sure we were handling it the right way, communicating properly and obviously everything concluded yesterday. But we have a ton of confidence in our plan moving forward.”