INDIANAPOLIS — See anything on the Chicago Bears roster that interests you? Reach out to Ryan Poles.

The general manager is willing to consider just about anything as the team seeks to create needed salary-cap flexibility in the next two weeks. The Bears are trying to thread the needle of being competitive again in 2026 while building a foundation to remain that way for seasons to come — and they’re in information-gathering mode this week at the NFL scouting combine.

They currently project to be a few million dollars over the cap, and there aren’t a lot of simple ways to clear large chunks of space without starting the tricky process of rolling it into next year and then repeating the process a few times until finding themselves in cap hell.

So the Bears are open-minded, willing to consider a wide range of options if they present the possibility of helping now and into the future. The situation is such that they might wind up parting with more than one player they really would like back.

“This is one of the closest-knit groups I’ve ever been a part of, last year’s team,” coach Ben Johnson said Tuesday. “That’s hard to generate. I wish there was some magic stick you could just float on out there to make that happen. We had a lot of high-character players. They came together and they wanted what was best for the team and for their buddies. That’s a hard thing to replicate.

“We have to do what is best for the team, and as we stack back up the 90-man roster again, we’ve got numerous holes to fill.”

During separate media availabilities with Poles and Johnson, a few names were floated. Poles said the Bears have fielded trade calls for backup quarterback Tyson Bagent, whom they rewarded with an early contract extension last August.

It sure sounds like Bagent is available — if the price is right. What that is remains to be seen, but it’s hard to imagine a mid-round draft pick doing the trick when you know of Johnson’s affinity for the former undrafted free agent.

Want wide receiver DJ Moore? What do you have to offer?

“We want him here,” Poles said. “We think highly of him. He’s a great teammate. He has been productive pretty consistently over the last however many years he’s been here. So I have nothing but great things to say about him.

“But this is the time now where we have to look at all the different scenarios to see what can allow us to put the best team out there. And I’ve talked about this before: There are relationships there. There’s a lot there that makes it really, really difficult. He’s a guy we want here. But we have to look at all the different scenarios.”

The Moore situation is interesting. It’s not lip service. The Bears want him back but they need cap space too. His contract is such that they would not benefit from releasing him. They would create $16.5 million in cap space if they traded him.

Would another team trade a pick and agree to take on the $24.5 million Moore is owed this season? Oh, by the way, $15.5 million of the $24.5 million he’s owed in 2027 becomes fully guaranteed on March 13. The Bears might have to pay down the contract to trade Moore, and at that point they might be better off keeping him.

It stands to reason linebacker Tremaine Edmunds will be released to create $15 million in cap space, but that hasn’t happened yet. Tight end Cole Kmet? Running back D’Andre Swift?

“I feel pretty good about the guys you just mentioned being here,” Poles said about Kmet and Swift. “But again, there’s a lot more calls coming in, interest in these guys, that we have to kind of sequence that out to see how it impacts our team.”

That means determining the replacement cost and how creating additional holes on the roster would affect the order of team needs.

“We know what we need to do, but any new, unique opportunities that might pop up are usually going to pop up here,” Poles said. “And then we’ll get back and kind of sort it all out and make decisions.”

Coming off their first NFC North title since 2018, the Bears aren’t fixing to go all-in on 2026 and create a situation in which their window for competition is closing — even temporarily — when quarterback Caleb Williams should be entering his prime. Poles praised vice president of football administration Matt Feinstein, who will be busy managing the cap in the weeks and months to come.

“We want to stay in that sweet spot where we have a maximum amount of flexibility as we move on,” Poles said. “Not only for this year but three years down the road.

“I hope eventually to have a quarterback situation, too, where we’ve got to pay a young quarterback. That comes into play as well. I think we’re getting closer and closer to clarity on that side of things, which helps us start to build those models to make sure we’re doing the right thing.”

Johnson beamed about Williams and how his play took off in a short period of time. The coach has talked about going back to ground zero after such a successful season. That’s because success in the NFL never is guaranteed to carry from one season to the next. The good thing is Williams won’t be learning from scratch this April like he was when the offseason program commenced a year ago.

“We saw enormous growth over the course of the season,” Johnson said. “I keep going back to what 7-on-7 looked like at the end of the year versus what it looked like to start. A drill as simple as that, yet you see him look so much more comfortable going through some of those same plays.

“A lot of it was like riding a bike for the first time with some of these concepts. You just hadn’t seen it and you get thrown a different coverage each and every time, and now you can accelerate your vision a little bit and that’s what he’s learning to do. That’s why I’m really confident in the direction he is going. I’m excited for him. I really do think this next offseason we’ll see significant strides.”

How things shake out in terms of the cap will be interesting to watch.

“Prepare for the unpredictable,” one longtime league observer predicted, knowing Johnson will have a hand in the building process.

The unpredictable sounds like the kind of move that hasn’t been predicted for weeks now.

“You might have an off-the-wall idea that you’ve kind of got to talk it through of what the consequences might be if you went down that road,” Johnson said. “That’s this time of year. You’re trying to, as I’ve been saying all day long, accumulate the best 90-man roster you possibly can. We need it to be as competitive as it’s ever been so that we take the next step.”

Have one of those off-the-wall ideas? Try Poles. He’s willing to listen.

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