If you believe what Chicago Bears GM Ryan Poles said at the NFL Owners Meetings Monday, you have to pencil in an offensive tackle to the Bears in the first round of your 2023 NFL mock drafts.
Poles met with some of the Bears beat reporters in Arizona and confirmed that the odds Chicago will land a starting right tackle at this point in free agency are low. Instead, the Bears will use the draft to build their offensive and defensive lines.
Poles didn’t mince words when asked about the remaining free-agent offensive tackles.
“When you get to this point of free agency, it drops off,” Poles said via ESPN’s Courtney Cronin. “The salaries drop off, talent, experience drops off. You do have a wave of players, offensively and defensively, that will go through the draft because they kind of want to see how everything settles. So we’ll keep an eye on those players.
“But right now, to improve our team, I think we got to look to the draft.”
