Poles made the hard choice to start a full rebuild. In the NFL most try to win quick because its a win now league. The easy part was getting rid of the older payers and setting up the cap to be very beneficial moving fwd.
Poles should get a ton of credit for choosing what looks like the right coaching staff. Playing with about 100 million of Dead cap space the Bears have been in every game this season. I think we have a great staff, still a little early to tell but they have impressed me with what they are doing with the roster they have.
Where I think Poles has failed = Justin Fields is the most important piece of the future, he could have done waaaaaay more to help in the development of Fields this season. Everyone knew Oline was a huge issue, he attempted to get Bates from Buf (they stopped it) he should have had other plans once that failed. A young QB needs time in the pocket to get comfortable, its well documented how fast the defense is getting to Fields and how often. This can be very bad for the development of Fields.
WR - another area that everyone knew was a very weak spot on the roster. Would have liked Pickens in the 2nd, instead he took Brisker who looks to be a good player. Checking next years FA class and Draft class it looks to be short on WR's.... the reason he traded for Claypool. Next years FA class looks to have some good Safety's but we are set at Safety because we took Brisker......
By going full rebuild Poles will either succeed on his terms or fail on his own terms.... He wont be able to blame anyone else. This next offseason should be an entertaining one.