Ryan Poles wanted to let the dust settle, to allow his emotions to run their course.

The Chicago Bears general manager craved a win “so bad” in the season finale against the Green Bay Packers to confirm the progress he felt the team made in the last two months. And then, with the opportunity to knock their biggest rival out of the playoffs, the Bears flopped in a 17-9 loss at Lambeau Field, confirming for Poles that the team is “just not there yet.”

The loss stung Poles and other Bears bosses, enough that President and CEO Kevin Warren kept the Packers security tag on his briefcase a couple of extra days as he processed the defeat.

In the 24 hours that followed, Poles conducted player exit interviews alongside coach Matt Eberflus. And then, finally with cool heads, he and Bears leadership sorted through the information they collected all season to determine the future of the coaching staff.

Three days after the loss, the Bears announced Wednesday that they had fired offensive coordinator Luke Getsy and four offensive position coaches — but that Eberflus would stay on after going 10-24 over his first two seasons.

Citing Eberflus’ leadership, stability and adaptability during a 7-10 season, Poles hitched the team’s future to the idea that Eberflus has laid the groundwork for a championship team — and that the best thing for the young Bears is to maintain continuity at the top, even though plenty will change on offense in 2024.

“The stability was a big piece of it,” Poles said. “The detail that he coaches with. Taking some of the mistakes from the game, bringing them to practice and making sure that we’re doing things the right way, I saw a lot of progress in that.

“There’s a reason why we went from three to seven wins. The player aspect of it is important but also the detail and bringing the team together. Sticking through those hard times allowed us to push through, and you saw a lot of those wins happening toward the back end of the season.

“If it’s not for him, I really don’t think that’s the case. I think it starts to crumble; everyone starts to do their own thing.”

Poles also noted how Eberflus embraced “sudden change” in his role as he began calling defensive plays midseason after the resignation of coordinator Alan Williams. The Bears defense under Eberflus totaled 28 takeaways and largely fueled the turnaround from a 2-7 start to a 5-3 closing stretch.

Poles’ decision might not be popular on the outside, given the quality of head-coaching candidates on the market and the need to bring in the right coach to develop whichever quarterback the Bears choose for 2024.

But it was consistent in how Poles has spoken about Eberflus since he hired him in January 2022. Poles believes in Eberflus’ leadership and insisted the Bears progress is “not a house of cards.”

Poles said it was his call to retain Eberflus, but he gathered input from Warren and Chairman George McCaskey.

“The nice thing about this is we were all on the same page,” Poles said.

Eberflus sat next to Poles on Wednesday at Halas Hall during the end-of-season news conference while Poles answered questions about the decision. That led to one slightly awkward exchange — but a necessary one given recent rumors.

Poles balked at a question about whether he talked to Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh, whose potential move to the NFL has been widely speculated after he led the Wolverines to the national championship Monday.

“No, I haven’t talked to Jim,” Poles said. “He’s the coach at Michigan.”

And when pressed on whether he considered Harbaugh as an option, Poles said: “No, like I said, we’re going with Matt and I gave you the reasons why. I didn’t go talk to anybody.”

So Poles’ faith in Eberflus is clear, though he used an analogy about Eberflus weathering a storm that didn’t take into account that many of the storms the Bears faced were partially self-created.

With the firings of Getsy, quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko, wide receivers coach Tyke Tolbert, running backs coach Omar Young and assistant tight ends coach Tim Zetts, seven of the assistants Eberflus brought on board when he was hired have left in the last four months.

That includes a coordinator in Getsy who didn’t mesh well enough with inherited quarterback Justin Fields to get the passing offense out of the bottom six in the league. And that includes Williams and running backs coach David Walker, who both left the team in the middle of the season for conduct-related reasons.

Poles said he will “work really closely” with Eberflus in selecting coordinators and assistants over the coming weeks, noting the hectic nature of the initial round of hiring in January 2022 after he and Eberflus were hired. Both Poles and Warren stated their belief that the jobs will attract top candidates because of the Bears’ nucleus of good, young players and resources to continue to build.

Poles also said he believes in the Bears’ process to learn from their mistakes.

“We take a lot of pride in the after-action setup where we look back at the issues that we had,” Poles said. “What’s avoidable? What’s not? If it’s avoidable, what can we do to make sure that we stay away from those storms so that we continue to improve and not repeat the same mistakes?

“I think we’ll continue to do that. We’ve done that a lot this year. So I feel confident in that.”

Warren followed Poles in Wednesday’s news conference and stated his confidence in Poles, Eberflus and their working relationship. He called himself “extremely impatient” but twice referred to his time with the St. Louis Rams and Minnesota Vikings as examples of patience paying off.

In 1997 and ‘98, the Rams won nine total games before winning the Super Bowl in the 1999 season behind Hall of Fame coach Dick Vermeil and quarterback Kurt Warner.

“The worst thing you can do in an organization that is making progress is to turn around too quickly,” Warren said. “And you have to evaluate honestly. And so I just feel here, with the people that we have in this building, the changes that we’ve started to make today, the people that we will hire, the core group of players that we have, the draft capital that we have, the salary-cap situation that we’re in, the free agents, just look what was accomplished.

“Go back 12 months ago and look at the progress that we’ve made. You’re not where you want to be, we’re not where we’re going to be, but we’re pointed in the right direction.”

Poles is betting on Eberflus to keep the Bears headed in that direction.

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MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — Nikki Haley will hit New Hampshire airwaves with an unusually long, three-minute TV ad on Monday, highlighting her foreign policy credentials in a spot that will effectively function as her closing message in the state.

The emotionally-charged ad features the mother of Otto Warmbier, a young American who was imprisoned while visiting North Korea in early 2016. He fell into a coma during that time and returned to the United States 17 months later in a vegetative state, only to die days later.

His mother, Cindy, spoke in February at Haley’s presidential campaign launch, praising her supportiveness while she was ambassador to the United Nations, a position to which she was appointed by former President Donald Trump.

“I will tell you about her strength, her compassion, and her belief that every human being is worth fighting for,” Cindy Warmbier says in the ad, which features clips of her speech at Haley’s campaign launch. “I will tell you that Nikki didn’t help me because it was her job. She did it as a mom, a friend, and a fighter who made my fight her own.”

The ad does not mention Trump, whose administration worked to bring home Warmbier. But Haley throughout her campaign has sought to contrast her foreign policy positions with her former boss, in particular highlighting her tough stance toward North Korea and China and criticizing Trump for taking a friendly approach toward Kim Jong Un.

While longer than the usual 30-second or minute-long campaign spots, Haley isn’t the first candidate to run an extended ad. Now-President Joe Biden in 2020 ran two-minute long ads in both the primary and general election.

In 2008, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign took out a 30-minute ad — essentially a political infomercial about his platform — that ran simultaneously on broadcast and cable television stations. In 1992, Ross Perot ran his own half-hour infomercials.

A spokesperson for Haley’s campaign did not provide information on how much money the campaign is spending on air time, or on which channels it will run. The campaign told POLITICO it will run across New Hampshire.

BRAINERD, Minn. — It’s full steam ahead for the 34th annual Brainerd Jaycees Ice Fishing Extravaganza.

The extravaganza will take place from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 3, on Hole-in-the-Day Bay, where thousands of anglers will gather in hopes of winning prizes and supporting local area charities.

And yes, the tournament is on as scheduled. Recently, a Facebook post announced the tournament was canceled, making the post look like an official Brainerd Jaycees announcement. That post wasn’t official and it wasn’t true.

The biggest obstacle right now would be ice conditions, but more than a week of frigid temperatures has ice conditions pointing in the right direction.

Katherine Thoennes, chairwoman for Brainerd Jaycees Ice Fishing Extravaganza, said they are excited to be bringing back their larger-than-life kickoff party for the first time in a few years.

SMALL FILE — MAX. WIDTH FOR PRINT: 4.7 INCHES — Katherine Thoennes, chairwoman for Brainerd Jaycees Ice Fishing Extravaganza, talks about the extravaganza on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024. (Tim Speier / Brainerd Dispatch)

“After COVID, we kind of didn’t go as large with our kickoff party in parts, because also we need committee members and our volunteers to be able to handle that,” Thoennes said.

This year’s sold-out kickoff party will feature Charlie Berens on his Good Old Fashioned Tour, on Feb. 2 at the Gichi-ziibi Center for the Arts.

Thoennes said the extravaganza chair often takes over and starts working around June, though this year she started a few weeks after the 2023 extravaganza ended as they had some changes and ideas they wanted to implement.

“We wanted to revise our rules to make it clear for our contestants,” Thoennes said. “We wanted to go ahead and revise our frequently asked questions to bring in things that we were continually missing that our contestants needed to know. Then we had some really passionate committee members who really wanted to bring back the kickoff party in a huge way. And oh, man, they pulled that off with Charlie Berens this year.”

One of the changes this year has been how the marketing team has approached the contest. Thoennes said they usually start advertising the contest in the fall, though this year they began selling tickets early with Father’s Day and Fourth of July sales to get the word out.

Mike Kuck, co-chair for Brainerd Jaycees Ice Fishing Extravaganza, said the marketing team has worked to advertise the contest outside of Minnesota to draw in new contestants.

Kuck said they are working on getting it on the map for the people who haven’t been to Minnesota, haven’t been ice fishing or people that wanted to experience something that’s crazy big.

SMALL FILE — MAX. WIDTH FOR PRINT: 5.3 INCHES — Mike Kuck, co-chair for Brainerd Jaycees Ice Fishing Extravaganza, talks about the extravaganza on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024.Tim Speier / Brainerd Dispatch

“If you’ve never experienced it it’s a completely new world out there,” Kuck said. And it’s turned into a bucket list item I’d say for so many people across the world.”

For those who have not been ice fishing and are looking to try their luck, one only needs a pole, a hook and some bait, Kuck said. Oh, and some proper warm clothes.

“One of the most incredible things are the people who come to our contest who’ve never been out on the ice,” Thoennes said. “We have people flying in from other countries who come out. And it’s a, ‘Well, what do I need?’”

Proper gear includes bundling up, dressing in layers, using hand warmers, wearing heavy boots and knowing where the Mr. Buddy Heater ticket tent is when a quick warm-up is needed. The beer tent is heated as well.

When it comes to fishing the contest, just a bit of luck is needed and anyone has a chance of winning it big. That big winner in 2023 was 13-year-old Zac Padrnos from Hutchinson, who took home a brand new Ford truck with a 9.45-pound walleye.

Anglers competing in the contest should remember to bring a pick or chisel with them to reopen the holes they will be fishing out of.

“Some people say you have to fish in the deep, some people say you gotta go in the shallows,” Kuck said. “Or just pick a spot because you never know where the fish are going to be.”

Thoennes said they will continue to offer shuttle services from Brainerd International Raceway, including a handicap shuttle as they want everyone who wants to fish to be able to do so.

The event is family-oriented, Thoennes added, and the Youth Ice Olympics will be on the ice for kids who are looking for something more to do.

The Youth Ice Olympics is described in the rules book as a free event that educates and entertains children while they’re waiting for the extravaganza to begin. There are stations designed to teach children about ice fishing and the first 100 participants will win an ice fishing bucket full of prizes from several ice fishing vendors courtesy of Fleet Farm. The Youth Ice Olympics will be located near center ice from 10-11:30 a.m.

The extravaganza is completely volunteer run with the money raised being donated back to the volunteer groups helping to run the contest. Last year Brainerd Jaycees raised $137,866 for local charities.

Those looking for a complimentary ticket can volunteer to pre-drill holes before the contest.

Brainerd Jaycees Ice Fishing Extravaganza tickets can be purchased online at icefishing.org/shop or at any Fleet Farm location prior to Feb. 3. To find more information, visit icefishing.org.

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It was on the same stage in the same room and in the same setting — the end-of-season wrap-up — when Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles said a year ago that he would have to be blown away to use the No. 1 pick in the draft on a quarterback.

Ultimately, Poles wasn’t moved to choose a QB, and one he passed on, C.J. Stroud, is leading the Houston Texans into the wild-card round of the playoffs this weekend. He’s going to be the runaway winner for offensive rookie of the year after throwing for 4,108 yards and 23 touchdowns.

In a similar media session Wednesday afternoon, after another last-place finish in the NFC North, Poles explained it was his call to retain coach Matt Eberflus for a third season. He listed reasons he’s confident the team will attract quality candidates to replace the majority of Eberflus’ offensive staff that was fired, including coordinator Luke Getsy and quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko. Poles championed the idea of continuity and pointed to an improving roster on a young team that performed better during the second half of a 7-10 season.

It remains to be seen how convincing Poles, Eberflus and President/CEO Kevin Warren, who spoke for a combined 90 minutes, were for a fan base that fears the organization could remain stuck in a cycle of drafting a quarterback, firing a coach, hiring a new coach for the QB, mixing in a new GM and then starting all over again. Rinse. Repeat.

It’s a fair concern. The Bears own the first and ninth picks in the draft, and there’s a strong chance the team will use a high selection on a quarterback. If tangible gains aren’t made in 2024, will the team be in the hunt for a new coach to pair with a young quarterback entering Year 2? We’ve seen that movie — and the multiple sequels — and we know how it ends.

“I’m not worried about the history of different things,” Poles said. “It’s a different situation. This roster is built on really solid ground. It’s a little bit of a different situation in my mind.”

He pushed back at the idea the Bears necessarily made an error in evaluation when it came to Stroud, whom the Carolina Panthers passed over before the Texans took him at No. 2.

“I think you have to take in what’s best for your team,” Poles said. “So when you look at that situation and how it ended up playing out, to have DJ (Moore), to have Darnell (Wright), to have (Tyrique) Stevenson, to have the first overall and to have the second (-round pick) next year, I feel like that’s the best for our organization.”

That’s all part of what the Bears hope makes the roster attractive to candidates they want to speak with to fill out Eberflus’ staff. They’re going to put an emphasis on adaptability as they meet with candidates, and the Bears should be ahead of teams seeking a coordinator as part of a staff turnover. The club improved in a lot of areas from the first season under Poles and Eberflus, and which will give the new coaches and quarterback they wind up with a better opportunity to succeed.

Poles and Eberflus had positive remarks about Justin Fields, which is to be expected. They can’t say if Fields will be in the mix in 2024. If he’s not, they would like him to have solid trade value. If Fields had thrived, they wouldn’t have fired Getsy and Janocko, and Poles wouldn’t essentially made no comment about what’s going to happen with the fifth-year option in the quarterback’s contract. A decision on that option is due May 3.

“We love where Justin is right now,” Eberflus said. “He’ll continue to grow as we grow as a football team.”

Added Poles: “I did think Justin got better. I think he can lead this team. But at the same time there’s a unique situation.”

Fields was in the bottom third of the league in too many key statistical metrics for the Bears to commit to the idea of trading down from the first pick for a bundle of future assets and then building around him. It’s a time for information gathering, with Poles making it clear the most significant piece of the puzzle is learning what makes the prospects tick and getting to know them thoroughly.

How this plays out — with a new offensive staff and Eberflus needing to continue showing upward trajectory — will be something to watch. Poles originally sold the McCaskeys on a methodical process to establish sustained success. No one should have been expecting that at the end of Year 2.

“We’re playing the long game,” said Eberflus as he cited emerging young players.

Said Warren: “We’re impatiently patient but we also understand the importance to build a champion, it does take some time. I’m not saying a lot of time but I strongly believe that going into this third year is going to be a critical time for us to take a major jump.”

Warren was asked how he felt about the changes — and the big ones that were not made.

“Fortunately, I’ve been here,” he said. “My first year in the NFL, we were 5-11 at the St. Louis Rams. Second year we were 4-12. Then the third year we ended up going 16-3 and winning the Super Bowl. And I remember many of those days having conversations with John Shaw, our president, Jay Zygmunt, our executive vice president, coach (Dick) Vermeil, is that the questions that I would ask them of making sure the worst thing you can do on an organization that is making progress is to turn around too quickly.”

Those 1999 Rams happened to find a Hall of Fame quarterback who was sitting on the bench. Eberflus has some important decisions, and staff hires will be key. One way to ensure the Bears escape the cycle that has plagued them, well, just about forever: Pick the right quarterback come April. The right coordinator and quarterback coach are going to help. Another big-time wide receiver would be great. A better center is required.

The key to sustained success is fixing the quarterback position, and the Bears are, indeed, in a unique situation. Poles is right: The roster is better than it was when he held the No. 1 pick a year ago — good enough that this team could be a contender with the right guy.

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