In a morning meeting at Halas Hall on Jan. 19, general manager Ryan Poles finally revealed to everyone involved in the Chicago Bears’ coaching search whom he wanted to hire as the team’s next head coach.

Until then, Poles kept his thinking secret. He didn’t want to sway how others felt about the candidates the team interviewed.

“That’s when he gave his opinion and his thought process to everyone,” president/CEO Kevin Warren said. “It was organized — and it all came together.”

The night before, the Bears’ coaching search changed during the Detroit Lions’ playoff game against the Washington Commanders. Poles and Warren briefly talked that night. As every second passed in what became an upset win for the Commanders, it looked more likely that action would be required.

It was becoming time to go get Ben Johnson.

Literally.

“(Poles) basically said, ‘We need to be ready to get on a plane to get to Detroit,’” chairman George McCaskey said. “And then, upon reflection, and I think talking to Ben’s agent (Rick Smith), we also thought it was important to give Ben time to process what had happened. So we didn’t want to lose out, but we didn’t want to jump in too fast.”

The Bears also wanted to keep their interview with Eddie George — then the head coach of Tennessee State who has since been hired by Bowling Green — on their schedule for Halas Hall. The interview was arranged a week earlier. It wouldn’t change. Poles still wanted the same feedback on George as the previous 16 candidates.

But with the Lions eliminated from the playoffs, the Bears’ expansive coaching search accelerated. If teams were going to aggressively pursue Johnson, the Bears had to be ready, too. And they were. In interviews with The Athletic, Warren and McCaskey provided details of Poles’ search that resulted in Johnson’s hiring, the beginning of a successful offseason for the franchise.

“In retrospect,” McCaskey said, “I think Ben was his No. 1 candidate going into the process, but I think Ryan was smart enough to not want to compromise the process by offering his opinion before we had even started the process.”

The Ryan Poles era began in baggage claim at O’Hare International Airport on the night of Jan. 24, 2022. McCaskey drove to the airport, parked his Honda Accord in the White Sox level of the garage and met his new GM.

“He was squeezing himself into the passenger seat,” McCaskey recalled of Poles, a former offensive lineman. “I said, ‘You can put that seat back. And I realized in an instant the seat was already back as far as it could go. He was still having trouble getting in there.”

Three days later, Matt Eberflus was hired as the Bears’ head coach. He was one of three finalists that McCaskey, former president Ted Phillips and then-adviser Bill Polian had after running coinciding searches. Poles had the option to reopen the search but declined. They were introduced together at Halas Hall.

This search was very different. Warren replaced Phillips, but there would be no Polian. This search belonged to Poles.

“It was the most organized interview process that I’ve ever been involved with,” Warren said. “Not for a coach, I’m talking about for an executive, for anyone. It was great to be able to see that come to life.”

Poles ran his search through Microsoft Teams. Everything was there: the calendar, candidate experience overviews and background information. Upon the conclusion of each interview, the members of Poles’ interview panel — Warren, McCaskey, Matt Feinstein (director of football administration), Jeff King (senior director of player personnel), Ted Crews (chief administrative officer/special adviser to the president and CEO) and Liz Geist (executive vice president of people and culture/chief human resources officer) — were asked to grade each candidate. Poles set a 1-9 scale: 1 being a major concern and 9 meaning excellent. A variety of factors were considered: passion, football intelligence, vision, problem-solving, independence, communication, growth mindset, self-awareness and, of course, a plan for quarterback development.

But Poles wanted written responses, too. The panel was asked to consider a candidate’s background, key skills and leadership traits. They also provided their final assessments of each candidate. For more, Poles added reports where candidates were graded on how they presented themselves publicly in the past as the potential face of the franchise. Poles’ database had links to news articles, press conferences, podcasts and social media posts that featured the candidates.

“It was like how you set it up as a scouting report,” McCaskey said. “What are this person’s strengths? What do you think are this person’s challenges? What’s your final assessment? He looked for an objective assessment and a subjective assessment.”

The Bears interviewed 17 candidates, but it never felt overwhelming, McCaskey said, despite as many as three interviews happening on the same day. Part of that was the schedule Poles established. The panel members were afforded time between each interview to review their notes before entering their grades and evaluations.

“We wrote up reports,” Warren said. “It was almost like how he prepares for free agency and how he prepares for the draft. So it wasn’t like coming in there, ‘Hey, what’d you think about Candidate A?’ … ‘Oh, I like him.’ No, no, no, no. It was broken down into different categories about areas of that candidate and why it would make it important and why it would be relevant.”

League rules slowed down the hiring process. There were set windows for coaches on playoff teams and time limits, which created a greater emphasis on virtual video conferences. Every interview included individual time with Poles. Only three candidates visited Halas Hall: Ron Rivera, Mike McCarthy and George.

Johnson interviewed in the morning on Jan. 11. Aaron Glenn, the Lions’ defensive coordinator at the time, spoke with the Bears that afternoon.

“With a candidate like Ben — and this is true of other candidates, too — Zoom really didn’t still stifle them,” McCaskey said. “(Johnson’s) energy came right through the camera, and that was true of coach (Pete) Carroll and coach (Mike) Vrabel. And that was true for a couple other people. So I don’t think it was a detriment.”

To remove some of the emotion from the process, Poles asked staff members who weren’t present in the interviews to grade the candidates based on the information provided in the database.

“For me with Coach Johnson, in the first 10 minutes of the interview, I said that’s the person,” Warren said. “But one of the good things about it is, that’s when (Poles) showed some of his best leadership. He didn’t tip his hand. He just gathered information. Because sometimes what you need as a leader, you need to make sure that you’re gathering information but you’re not showing your hand. Because what you don’t want people to do is start to say, ‘Well, I think he likes this person.’ It’s like a player. He does the same thing in the draft room.

“What that did, which was beautiful, is that it allowed everyone in the room to really give transparent information about what they thought. So he was very regal in that process of gathering information.”

How Johnson opened and closed his interview resonated with McCaskey. He said he wanted to coach the Bears.

“Those were the first words out of his mouth on the Zoom,” McCaskey said. “And that was the last thing he said. He said, ‘Did I mention to you that I want this job?’ — right before we turned off the camera.”

Later that day, the Bears interviewed Glenn and then came 10 more candidates. They included McCarthy, who came to Halas Hall and then stayed in the area overnight.

Johnson, though, was a candidate who had Poles’ attention before the process even began. He watched Johnson’s offense at work twice a year for three seasons as Bears GM.

“When you go through the season, you watch different teams, you admire different coaches, just in terms of their creativity or even the mindset and the mentality that they play with,” Poles said on the “Hoge & Jahns” podcast. “So that was one where throughout the year, you could see the evolution that was going on in Detroit, not only with what I think is really establishing kind of a toughness, gritty play to begin with, and then all of a sudden, the bells and whistles come on, you see some of the creativity.

“As an offensive-minded person myself, (it’s an offense) that puts a lot of stress on the defense. You don’t know where things are coming from, if the tackle is going to throw the ball or if some trick play’s coming. So I know it’ll take a little bit to get to that point, but I just admire seeing the identity and also the creativity blended in there.”

Johnson decided he wanted to coach the Bears — not the Las Vegas Raiders or the Jacksonville Jaguars — on Jan. 20, the Monday after the Lions’ Saturday night playoff exit. The Bears went from being hopeful to showing how poised and prepared they were to act. Warren said Feinstein and Krista Whitaker, the Bears’ executive vice president of legal affairs and business/chief legal officer, had started preparing a contract weeks in advance of Poles’ eventual decision.

“Because I’ve been on that other side of that as an agent, as a lawyer, representing people,” Warren said. “And it’s one thing when someone says, ‘Hey, let me scribble these thoughts now on the napkin.’ Or, ‘You got a pen? Can you write this down?’ It’s a totally different thing when someone sends you a draft of an agreement, even though it’s not filled in, and then you can start working through it. Those are the things that really matter.”

It didn’t take long for a deal to get done. On Jan. 20, news officially broke from ESPN and NFL Network at 2:33 p.m. that the Bears and Johnson were finalizing an agreement.

Warren described Johnson’s agent, Rick Smith, as “absolutely outstanding” in the negotiations. In an interview with 2nd City Gridiron, Smith described the team as the “new Bears.” Smith credited King, a former client when he was a tight end in the NFL, for his role in the process. Smith said on the podcast that he laid out everything for Johnson on the night of Jan. 19. Johnson made his decision the next morning.

Poles wanted Johnson in charge of his team, and Johnson wanted to work with Poles.

“Anytime there’s a process like this, you hear all these crazy stories, and you don’t know their origins,” McCaskey said. “You don’t know who’s planting them. You have serious doubts about their authenticity. And for the guy to say, ‘Contrary to what you might have heard, I want to work with Ryan — and I want to be the next head coach of the Chicago Bears.’”

And Johnson wanted to coach in the NFC North where he’d face Dan Campbell and the Lions, Matt LaFleur and the Packers and Kevin O’Connell and the Vikings twice a season. He made that clear in his interview as well.

“He said, ‘I want that smoke,’” McCaskey said.

On Jan. 22, the Bears introduced Johnson at Halas Hall. On March 4, the Bears acquired their first new starter for him: guard Jonah Jackson, who previously played for Johnson and the Lions before signing with the Los Angeles Rams. A day later, Poles got Johnson one more: All-Pro guard Joe Thuney from the Kansas City Chiefs.

“The beautiful thing about the trade part of it is the two guys came from both of our backgrounds,” Poles said on “Hoge & Jahns.”

Poles started the conversations for both players. He called the Rams and Chiefs, his former team. Jackson’s acquisition wasn’t surprising after how his first season in Los Angeles played out, starting with a shoulder injury. But the shock of the arrival of Thuney, a future Hall of Famer, still hasn’t faded.

“I thought it was going to get turned down, to be honest with you,” Poles said.

It didn’t. Five days later, the Bears reached a deal with center Drew Dalman, the best free agent. The Bears now had a brand-new offensive line for their brand-new coach.

“I love our group,” Poles said. “Everyone’s able to think and come up with creative solutions to find a way and find a path to improve the team. And that’s just a really good example on both sides.”

Poles hasn’t been in McCaskey’s Accord since their first official day together. “No, he hasn’t, but he’s welcome anytime,” McCaskey said. Poles still won’t fit. Physically. But figuratively, he’s grown as the Bears’ football leader since then, too.

“He was young, a first-time GM,” McCaskey said. “I’m sure just like a head coach, you think about, well, if I ever get that opportunity, when I get that opportunity, here’s how it’s going to go. … and then reality throws itself at you and you’ve got to adjust. I think he’s learned a lot. I think he’s come into his own as a leader.

“I was very impressed with his head coaching search process: the way he set it up, how he decided who would be in the room, the candidates he selected, the variety, the way he conducted the interviews, the way he established a rapport with each candidate almost immediately, his thorough analysis of each candidate post interview, and then when he identified Ben Johnson as the guy, how we went after him and did what it took to get him. And how grateful we are that Ben decided to come here.”