Bears GM Ryan Poles questions “hard offseason setbacks”

For the first time, football fans got a glimpse into the New York Giants' NFL offseason in the inaugural season of the HBO series. Hard blows Out of season. This docuseries highlighted some very difficult conversations within the organization regarding personnel decisions for the team.

The debut season of the HBO and NFL Films spin-off series focused on Giants general manager Joe Schoen, whose job, of course, was to transform the Giants' roster into a contender for the 2024-25 season.

As always, fans are pretty critical of any general manager when it comes to offseason personnel decisions. But the unprecedented access to those decisions this season by Hard blows led to even more criticism of the Giants from fans and the media.

With that in mind, Chicago Bears General Manager Ryan Poles seems to believe that HBO may have a difficult time implementing the offseason version of the show in the future. And that's especially notable considering that Poles is currently working on the traditional training camp version of Hard blowswhich has had its own challenges in the past in finding willing teams. (It's unclear how willing the Bears were to make that show this year; their executives had nice things to say when they were selected, but they were one of three teams that could be forced to do so, as the New York Jets were last year.)

“Yes, that is a difficult question for me,” said Poles during an appearance at Hoge and Jahn's Podcast on Monday. “I think it will be difficult for them to find a team in the future. There is no show if there is no access. And you have to go through all possible scenarios.”

“There are a lot of internal conversations. And sometimes I have trouble talking about players. There is a business side to things. We try to be as transparent as possible. But I don't know if it has to come out to everyone.”

The training camp edition of the show that Poles is involved in naturally includes some of the same behind-the-scenes footage. For years, the most anticipated content in each season of the show is usually the meetings where the general managers tell the players close to being signed to the roster whether or not they made the team.

But in the offseason, Schoen has faced years of criticism captured on national television if something goes wrong this coming season. In particular, the fact that he let fan-favorite running back Saquon Barkley join an NFC East rival as a free agent could certainly backfire on him.

Chances are other GMs around the league feel the same way Poles does about the offseason format. Hard blows series. So he may well be correct in his assessment that other NFL teams may have concerns about participating in the offseason show unless access is restricted in the future.

[Hoge and Jahns on YouTube]