Ryan Pace Deserves More Respect

[soulman]

Chicago Bears: Ryan Pace deserves more respect by fans

by Rob Schwarz Jr 3 hours ago Follow @ChiRuxinBGO

 

The Chicago Bears General Manager does not receive the credit he deserves

When it comes to the Chicago Bears and football in general, many fans tend to have recency bias. As someone who has been playing fantasy football for over a decade, recency bias is something many people tend to do when it comes to sports. It seems that fans forget where this team was when Ryan Pace took over in 2015.

Well, I am here to remind you. When Ryan Pace took over, he took over a team that needed to see a youth movement immediately — especially on the defensive side of the ball. The 2014 defense consisted of players like Ryan Mundy (29), Jared Allen (32), Tim Jennings (31), Willie Young (29) and Lance Briggs (34).

All of these players were on the very downside of their careers. Now enter the John Fox and Ryan Pace era. There are two scenarios when it comes to Pace and Fox. Either Pace brought Fox in on purpose to help change the culture of the team — something Fox was known for throughout his career. Or Pace was forced to bring in Fox by George McCaskey and Ted Phillips. These two need to stay out of the way, and personally, I am in the belief that Fox was forced upon Pace by them.

This is one reason why fans should not be saying, it has been six years and the team has only been to the playoffs once. Although this is factually correct, just like any rebuild, the first couple of years are throwaway seasons when it comes to a record perspective. How should a General Manager be critiqued during this time period then? Simple. We need to look at where the team came from and where the team is now based on drafts and free agency.

Ryan Pace completely revamped the Chicago Bears roster

Going back to the 2014 roster when Pace took over, the team was at the bottom of nearly every position. Pace had little to work with and free agents were not willing to come to Chicago without being extremely overpaid.

The team still had some talent on offense and defense, but the talent was either young and untapped or the player was on the downside of his career. Matt Forte for example was 30 years old and only played another two (not very productive) seasons. Jay Cutler was the quarterback and the team kept him around throughout 2016 too.

Offensively, the team went from Cutler, Forte, Alshon Jeffery, Eddie Royal and Martellus Bennett to a team with young playmakers. We will get into that more later. On defense, the team was counting on players like Shea McClellin, Pernell McPhee, Lamarr Houston and more.

How did Pace revamp the team over the first few years? Well, he started with the draft. The team drafted Eddie Goldman and Adrian Amos. Both have become solid players in the NFL and Goldman is extremely underrated. Pace missed on Kevin White who was a high-risk draft pick, but also the consensus second-best wide receiver behind Amari Cooper. Had he not had the stress fracture he might not have lost his burst and who knows what his career would have looked like in the end.

In 2016, Pace selected Leonard Floyd in the first round. Floyd gets too much flack, to be honest. He is a very good football player, just not a sack specialist that everyone had hoped for. Other important players from the 2016 draft include Cody Whitehair, Nick Kwiatkoski, Jordan Howard and Deon Bush. This was a nice haul for Pace in year two and started the shift from rebuild to a contender.

One big miss has forever tainted Ryan Pace’s career with the Chicago Bears

Now we find ourselves looking at 2017 — the year of draft blunders as most fans would say. Ryan Pace traded up one spot to take Mitchell Trubisky opposed to staying put at number three and drafting whichever quarterback fell. This mistake was a big one and honestly inexcusable. The thing is, the team has survived this move and who is to say the other two quarterbacks would have played as well or developed the same way had the Chicago Bears drafted them instead.

Patrick Mahomes is amazing. Deshaun Watson is very good too, although I am not sold on him being as good as some people believe. Seeing him without Deandre Hopkins this year will be the true test for Watson. Either way, both have looked better than Trubisky and Pace may have cost himself another contract extension. That said, the team is still better now than it was when Pace took over.

Pace also whiffed on Adam Shaheen in the second round but did hit big on Eddie Jackson and Tarik Cohen. The team fell flat on their faces that year and Pace was able to fire John Fox and bring in a guy he actually wanted to hire. Now enter the Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace era. Pace was given an extension that aligned with Nagy’s four-year contract and on paper, both are here with the Chicago Bears until 2021.

Chicago Bears free agency and beyond

A look back at free agency for Ryan Pace sees some head-scratching moments. Sure, we can say that Pace was dumb for signing Mike Glennon. We can laugh at the likes of Dion SIms and Marcus Cooper. However, Pace also brought in the likes of Akiem Hicks and Danny Trevathan during a time when free agents did not want to be in Chicago.

After the Chicago Bears drafted Mitch Trubisky and replaced John Fox with Matt Nagy, free agent signings became easier for Pace. The team brought in Allen Robinson and Prince Amukamara. Amukamara is underrated as a corner and Robinson is still one of the top-15 receivers in the game. The team started taking form and in 2018 was able to dominate on defense with the trade for Khalil Mack. Some might say the Mack trade was a no-brainer, but Pace still deserves credit.

This is the year Matt Nagy wins Coach of the Year and Pace wins Executive of the Year. All signs are pointing towards the team becoming dominant as they finish 12-4 in Nagy’s first year. In 2019, the team hit a bump in the road. Not many new faces took place between 2017 and 2018 outside of draft picks Roquan Smith, James Daniels, Anthony Miller and Bilal Nichols. All four made major impacts their rookie years but took steps back in 2019.

2019 was bad, but the team still finished 8-8 despite some regression by key players. The 2020 team looks even better than 2019 on paper, yet fans are still arguing for Pace to be fired. The additions of Robert Quinn, Nick Foles, Germain Ifedi and Jimmy Graham bring major upgrades to key positions. Then the team drafted Cole Kmet and Jaylon Johnson, both of who are expected to make an impact this year.

When we look at Pace’s tenure with the Chicago Bears we need to look at it in two cycles. The first two to three years were the rebuild years with a head coach forced upon him by management who have proven to know little about football. Then we have his current contract which is aligned with Nagy. Since that acquisition, the team has been a contender and not a pretender. Even at 8-8, the team was within reach of the playoffs until late in the season.

During this span, the team is 20-12 over two seasons. Let us see where that record goes after the 2020 season, but I expect the team to still be better than .500. I see the team pushing for the playoffs once again and even if they do not make it, Pace and Nagy will be back in 2021. We will take a look at what the scenarios look like for the 2021 season soon, but all but one include Pace and Nagy. Sorry to disappoint some of you out there.

[soulman]

Recognizing full well that I have just waved a red flag in Windy's direction nonetheless this should stir up some interesting and vocal opinions.

Say what you will but I believe he's done a fair job of offering a fully unsanitized version of the main events in Pace's career as Bears GM.  The good and the bad are all here for all to see so there is IMHO no gilding of the Lilly here.  He's calling balls and strikes as he's sees them and accurately as well.

The two points I agree upon most are that Pace's first three years took place while being saddled with a HC that I also believe was forced upon him due to his coming in as a very inexperience GM but not exactly and inexperienced or unsuccessful personnel guy in NOLA.  So at least two full years were wasted catering to the whims of a HC out of touch with modern NFL football and we gained nothing from a culture change except to become on of the losingest teams in Bears history.

So I will also separate those three seasons from the current three when at long last under a new coaching regime Pace was finally able to attract top UFAs like ARob to the Bears and prevent our own top UFAs from departing as he's done with Kyle Fuller and others.  Two years of this 3 year run are already in the record books at 20/12/.625.  If we contrast this to our 14/34/.292 under John Fox we've already come a long way back from that kind of oblivion and still rebuilding some units.

FWIW I feel this is the only fair way to evaluate Ryan Pace's record as Bears GM.  But I will add that the McCaskey's love him and trust him enough to have stepped back and given him free rein over rebuilding their franchise including his development of the new world class practice and training facilities at Halas Hall.  This has also proven helpful in attracting top player talent and quite possibly the best coaching staff we've seen since the '80s.  Pace has his failures but he has some awesome wins too,

 

[Sugashane]

There are multiple facets to measure when looking at Pace. 

 

I choose to ignore the first 3 years because he was tasked with rebuilding a team that had empty cupboards. Ozzie, The Hoodie, etc all would have losing records there. Period. So I will measure the last two years for W/L. To be fair looking at Fox with the trash he was handed it isn't exactly fair to him to compare to Nagy either. Nagy would have a sub .400 record in Fox's shoes and I don't think it would even be close to that either TBH. He took over the Emery/Trestman mess just as much as Pace did, and that's not me making excuses for him. He is a mediocre coach that can ride talented teams. 

 

20 wins and 12 losses. 0 for 1 in the playoffs. Doesn't look bad at all but lets look further.

Offense scoring - 9th out of 32 (with a high number of defensive TDs) and 29th out of 32

Defense scoring - 1st of 32 and 4th out of 32

Playoff game was abysmal - defense did great and offense mustered only 15 measly points. That's nothing to brag about. The defense only allowed 16 in the playoffs. That was

 

Offense - scored over 21 points in all but 4 games in 2018 but failed to score over 21 in 12 games for 2019. 

Defense - only let 5 teams score over 21 points in 2018 and 2019 each. Clearly doing great work. 

 

So offensively between his players and coaches he is bordering on failing so far. Defensively he has been a massive success. 

 

Pace has to get points on the board. We aren't going to challenge for meaningful wins with regularity scoring 18 PPG, even if the defense is elite. Geerally the rule seems to be you have to be competent on one side of the ball and good on the other. Right now we are borderline elite (Goldman out, #2 CB and SS are major question marks atm) and offense has not proven to be much improved. Still too early to tell but we look like a top 12 team just from riding out on the defense, but we aren't a top 6 team at all. 

 

Pace and Nagy deserve this year to prove if they're good enough to keep in their full power. Pace needs to show his moves were well-founded and Nagy needs to prove he can call a game and run an offense. If not then hand the call-sheet to someone else or move on to someone if he refuses. Pace needs to have the cojones to make that call. FWIW I think he does. 

Edited August 26, 2020 by Sugashane

[WindyCity]

In 6 years he has built one of the worst offenses in the NFL.

His work at QB has been nothing short of horrendous.

No puff pieces will change the fact that it is 2020 and we don’t have an offense.

[soulman]

11 hours ago, Sugashane said:

Pace has to get points on the board. We aren't going to challenge for meaningful wins with regularity scoring 18 PPG, even if the defense is elite. Geerally the rule seems to be you have to be competent on one side of the ball and good on the other.

For both you and Windy since he's chimed in as expected.....LOL.

Pace isn't the guy responsible for putting points on the board in Chicago anymore so than he was in NOLA.  That responsibility belongs to the HC and his offensive staff who create the schemes and plays upon which to base game plans and play calls.  Pace does none of that.  His job is to provide the HC with the talent he needs to get the job done and in that respect at least offensively Pace's track record has been no better than average or possibly below average to some.

As Rob Schwarz points out, and fairly as well, it was picks #1 (White) in 2015 and #1 (Mitch) and #2 (Shaheen) in the 2017 draft that have become major anchors on his success at rebuilding the offense.  Shaheen was clearly a risky pick made out of need in somewhat the same way White was and neither could stay healthy and contribute.  So two high draft picks were spent getting nothing in return and we had to sign ARob to be what we hoped White could be and spend yet another 2nd round pick on a TE.

We still don't have a final answer about Mitch but it's beginning to look like he's very close to being all he can ever be and it's not the level of a top NFL starter let alone a Franchise QB.  This kind of miss has hurt us even more but I can't diss Pace over it completely.  We've all seen what Mitch can do when he "tuned in" and confident in his game and we've also seen the polar opposite when even Jay Cutler was a more consistent passer.  What we don't really know is why this is.

It was very obviously Mitch's arm and his athletic ability that attracted teams to him and both are well above average.  We've also heard his coaches tell us that he's a good student of the game and picks up concepts quickly so he's not lacking in football intelligence either.  What I, and many others I'm sure, want to know is why all of that seems to vanish during some games and he begins to look like yet another of our failed QB draftees?  He's quite an enigma to everyone.

At the risk of digging up a long since buried dead horse I'm one who is more than willing to blame John Fox for his role in digging an offensive hole it's been difficult to climb out of.  His "culture change" led to us parting ways with some still productive offensive skill players and forced us into drafting their replacements at a time when we had no real offensive identity except Fox's just play not to lose.  Remember, I saw how Fox failed in Denver as well and his root arrogance.

Unquestionably the very worst of Fox's moves was to alienate Cutler over starting a 3rd rate place holder backup QB thereby losing an experienced vet who could have served as a starter in 2017 while Mitch learned from the sidelines and even in 2018 under Nagy if it was still needed.  Mahomes is far more like a Cutler whether fans want to accept that or not and quite possibly why Pace opted to avoid him and draft less of a gunslinger instead while Nagy may have preferred Mahomes.

We'll never know on that score but what we do know is this.

Fox's arrogance and stupidity is what was behind Plan A to draft Mitch while signing a far lesser QB than Jay Cutler to be our 2017 starter while Mitch sat and learned NFL style offenses.  It failed miserably and at least in part has landed us in the mess we're in now because once we made the trade for Mack any possibility of drafting another 1st round QB to compete with Mitch went out the window as did adding 1st round talent at OT to challenge Leno and Massie.

I don't necessarily disagree that Fox and Pace both came into a difficult situation but only one of them made the situation even worse and for three seasons Pace had to live with that because GMcC and Phillips would not permit Pace to fire him after year two when he should have been fired.  That became a setup for even more failure in 2017 and both Pace and Nagy have been trying to dig us out from that ever since and not entirely unsuccessfully based on our post Fox record.

My position is that on balance of the whole and not only focusing on the mistakes made in FA and the draft Pace has done a reasonably good job of resurrecting one of the very worst teams in the NFL and helped to put as back in contention again.  Yeah he phuc'd up on some stuff.  But what GM doesn't and many of them have had far more experience than Pace had when he was given the Bears GM job with the curse of having an albatross like John Fox hung hung around his neck.

The question we need to be asking is whether or not Pace is getting better at his job.  Have he and Joey Laine managed the cap well?  Have his UFA signings been better and more productive?  Do top shelf players look forward to coming to Chicago again?   Have his drafts improved?  Has he been willing to fairly evaluate his own mistakes and move on from them?  The W/L record is an objective fact but it's all of these other subjective issues that contribute to it and they should be included.

The end. 🧐

[soulman]

7 hours ago, WindyCity said:

In 6 years he has built one of the worst offenses in the NFL.

His work at QB has been nothing short of horrendous.

No puff pieces will change the fact that it is 2020 and we don’t have an offense.

Ya see how nice I was to you here giving you another shot to chime in with your gross negativity?

You're not by chance in sales are you?  I hope not because then I don't have to worry about you and your family starving and out on the street.

You keep selling a picture of gloom that few here or anywhere else will buy.

And.....this is all the more time I will spend any longer debating Pace with you much like I no longer waste time getting some people to see what an incompetent, corrupt, worthless POS we have running our govt.  You can't fix the past unless you also plan to fix the future and that's where I prefer to spend my energies and intellect.

[WindyCity]

3 hours ago, soulman said:

Ya see how nice I was to you here giving you another shot to chime in with your gross negativity?

You're not by chance in sales are you?  I hope not because then I don't have to worry about you and your family starving and out on the street.

You keep selling a picture of gloom that few here or anywhere else will buy.

And.....this is all the more time I will spend any longer debating Pace with you much like I no longer waste time getting some people to see what an incompetent, corrupt, worthless POS we have running our govt.  You can't fix the past unless you also plan to fix the future and that's where I prefer to spend my energies and intellect.

It isn’t negativity and gloom. It is an honest assessment of what this team is. The fact you can’t see it makes me worried that you may be a member of a cult. Some of our fandoms are not dependent on delusional positive self talk.

The Bears offense is bad. There QB situation is bad. The talent on offense is not good.

Those are facts. They aren’t fun facts or happy facts, but that doesn’t change that they are true.

Perhaps when you are done denying the Bears offense isn’t good you could move on to denying climate change.

[Sugashane]

6 hours ago, soulman said:

For both you and Windy since he's chimed in as expected.....LOL.

Pace isn't the guy responsible for putting points on the board in Chicago anymore so than he was in NOLA.  That responsibility belongs to the HC and his offensive staff who create the schemes and plays upon which to base game plans and play calls.  Pace does none of that.  His job is to provide the HC with the talent he needs to get the job done and in that respect at least offensively Pace's track record has been no better than average or possibly below average to some.

As Rob Schwarz points out, and fairly as well, it was picks #1 (White) in 2015 and #1 (Mitch) and #2 (Shaheen) in the 2017 draft that have become major anchors on his success at rebuilding the offense.  Shaheen was clearly a risky pick made out of need in somewhat the same way White was and neither could stay healthy and contribute.  So two high draft picks were spent getting nothing in return and we had to sign ARob to be what we hoped White could be and spend yet another 2nd round pick on a TE.

We still don't have a final answer about Mitch but it's beginning to look like he's very close to being all he can ever be and it's not the level of a top NFL starter let alone a Franchise QB.  This kind of miss has hurt us even more but I can't diss Pace over it completely.  We've all seen what Mitch can do when he "tuned in" and confident in his game and we've also seen the polar opposite when even Jay Cutler was a more consistent passer.  What we don't really know is why this is.

It was very obviously Mitch's arm and his athletic ability that attracted teams to him and both are well above average.  We've also heard his coaches tell us that he's a good student of the game and picks up concepts quickly so he's not lacking in football intelligence either.  What I, and many others I'm sure, want to know is why all of that seems to vanish during some games and he begins to look like yet another of our failed QB draftees?  He's quite an enigma to everyone.

At the risk of digging up a long since buried dead horse I'm one who is more than willing to blame John Fox for his role in digging an offensive hole it's been difficult to climb out of.  His "culture change" led to us parting ways with some still productive offensive skill players and forced us into drafting their replacements at a time when we had no real offensive identity except Fox's just play not to lose.  Remember, I saw how Fox failed in Denver as well and his root arrogance.

Unquestionably the very worst of Fox's moves was to alienate Cutler over starting a 3rd rate place holder backup QB thereby losing an experienced vet who could have served as a starter in 2017 while Mitch learned from the sidelines and even in 2018 under Nagy if it was still needed.  Mahomes is far more like a Cutler whether fans want to accept that or not and quite possibly why Pace opted to avoid him and draft less of a gunslinger instead while Nagy may have preferred Mahomes.

We'll never know on that score but what we do know is this.

Fox's arrogance and stupidity is what was behind Plan A to draft Mitch while signing a far lesser QB than Jay Cutler to be our 2017 starter while Mitch sat and learned NFL style offenses.  It failed miserably and at least in part has landed us in the mess we're in now because once we made the trade for Mack any possibility of drafting another 1st round QB to compete with Mitch went out the window as did adding 1st round talent at OT to challenge Leno and Massie.

I don't necessarily disagree that Fox and Pace both came into a difficult situation but only one of them made the situation even worse and for three seasons Pace had to live with that because GMcC and Phillips would not permit Pace to fire him after year two when he should have been fired.  That became a setup for even more failure in 2017 and both Pace and Nagy have been trying to dig us out from that ever since and not entirely unsuccessfully based on our post Fox record.

My position is that on balance of the whole and not only focusing on the mistakes made in FA and the draft Pace has done a reasonably good job of resurrecting one of the very worst teams in the NFL and helped to put as back in contention again.  Yeah he phuc'd up on some stuff.  But what GM doesn't and many of them have had far more experience than Pace had when he was given the Bears GM job with the curse of having an albatross like John Fox hung hung around his neck.

The question we need to be asking is whether or not Pace is getting better at his job.  Have he and Joey Laine managed the cap well?  Have his UFA signings been better and more productive?  Do top shelf players look forward to coming to Chicago again?   Have his drafts improved?  Has he been willing to fairly evaluate his own mistakes and move on from them?  The W/L record is an objective fact but it's all of these other subjective issues that contribute to it and they should be included.

The end. 🧐

What? I have a ton of respect for you Soul, but that's one of the worst takes I've seen on here.  lol   

Yes, he is and he is largely responsible. He went and got ARob and Miller, he chose Trubiksy, he brought in Nagy, he either drafted, signed, or extended every starting OL we have right now, and he basically rebuilt the entire roster. When you pick your coach and have the final say on EVERY signing and draft pick, you are absolutely responsible in large part for the points that go on the board. His moves directly impact who we have playing, coaching, and has his fingerprints even in what system is run at each level as he allows positional coaches to be hired or gives the authority elsewhere (which is still his choice). Saying the GM has no more impact on putting point up than a scout or personnel director that has no actual final decision is ludicrous. How can you say he is responsible for hiring the staff and putting together talent but absolve him of the results he drives? 

 

IDC what all the other GMs say, what beat writers and experts or even fans say. GMs are paid to make the correct choice. If Pace drafts Mahomes or Watson then we score more points, period. Both are better than Trubisky, so he undercut the HC with a poor choice. That is exactly why he IS responsible in part for the failures on offense. To be fair, he doesn't lack on credit for the defensive success, he gets a huge part of that because he stocked the cupboard full of talent there. Without that Fangio and Pagano wouldn't have had as much success. Saying the Tru, White and Shaheen picks Pace made have become anchors on offense while saying Pace has no responsibility for putting up points are complete contradictions. Coaches can only use what they are given, and he handcuffed Nagy badly. 

I believe Pace was the one who wanted the culture change, even if Fox was an arrogant POS (I believe so 100%) Pace was the one with the final say in moving on from people and signing others. You can't say the coaches put points on the board and the GM only provides talent just to blame Fox for there being no talent. It's another contradiction. Pace needed to get younger and no one was going to do well there, so scrap the expensive vets and get young talent fighting. He did it right IMO, just some of the moves were poor. It happens, but he deserves credit and blame where it is due. 

The only similarities are the strong arm and "gunslinger" mentality to a degree. As players Cutler is closer to Tru as far as talent, questionable accuracy and decision making, and production go. Both the latter are bottom 15 starters on average and neither was ever near an MVP caliber player. Jay was a turnover machine, Mahomes' worst turnover ratio was Cutler's best (and only in a very brief 5 game season). Neither are much like Mahomes at all. 

 

I agree there needs to be balance, but ignoring his impact on the offense not being able to put up points in willful blindness, not balance. He failed to have much talent there for Nagy or he picked a HC who failed to develop his QB. Either way Pace's fingerprints are all over. 

 

Agree with the fact there are many factors to look at beyond the W/L record. 

[soulman]

6 hours ago, WindyCity said:

It isn’t negativity and gloom. It is an honest assessment of what this team is. The fact you can’t see it makes me worried that you may be a member of a cult. Some of our fandoms are not dependent on delusional positive self talk.

The Bears offense is bad. There QB situation is bad. The talent on offense is not good.

Those are facts. They aren’t fun facts or happy facts, but that doesn’t change that they are true.

Perhaps when you are done denying the Bears offense isn’t good you could move on to denying climate change.

But I'm not denying any of the more problematic offensive issues.  I just don't see them as being as terminal as you do.  And as for facts they're only your facts.  How right or wrong you may be now is only gonna be proven by the results of this coming season.  There's chance I might agree with you and an equal chance I won't.

You're a judgemental type Windy.  For you most things are either black or white.  Super Bowl ready or lousy.  You have no grays or in betweens and I don't see things that way.  I never have and never will.  Furthermore I don't often get along with judgementals or engage them as often as I have with you but even that is becoming more limited.

Oh, and climate change which I don't deny has zero to do with my opinions about the Bears.  That's an odd comparison.  One has nothing to do with the other.

[soulman]

3 hours ago, Sugashane said:

What? I have a ton of respect for you Soul, but that's one of the worst takes I've seen on here.  lol   

Well ya' kinda lost me at hello so not much sense in debating the rest.  We have very different viewpoints.

I'll just leave this on the table as I go.  Bears fans can be the single most annoying fans I've ever been around if only because to many the grass is always greener in someone else's yard or at least so they think yet they're never in that yard deeply enough to know just how green it really is.  Is it really nitrogen rich green grass or has the media only spray painted it to look that way?  Tough to tell when it's not your yard.

There are 32 NFL teams.  Someone finishes first each year and someone else wins the overall #1 pick.  The other 30 end up somewhere in between.  Where we end up does matter but mostly in terms of our trend line.  Are we improving, regressing, or stagnant not in only one year but across rolling three year periods.  That's how any efficient business analysis needs to be done in order to respond correctly, stay on track, and avoid reactionary decisions that typically have a negative impact.

But Bears fans seldom do this.  That's why we have "the sky is falling" types when we go from 12-4 to 8-8 never stopping to think would it look better if we went 8-8 then 12-4 yet the results for two years are the same.  Since we did regress did we make any changes in coaching and personnel to address that?  Well yeah, we did.  So what in the hell else did you expect.  Would it be better if we just played it cheap like we used to do and sold phony improvements to fans like JA often did?

We're in year three of a three year cycle under Nagy.  The first one under Fox having been a miserable failure.  What we look like coming out of this season will set the stage for the changes we need to make to set up the next three year cycle.  At 20-12 were are obviously improving over the previous 3 year cycle so the arrow on Pace's career is still pointing up enough to assure me that he's not going anywhere soon.  If that disappoints some fans write to GMcC and complain.  I don't own the Bears.

[soulman]

What I'm trying to get across here is that even if we had yet another 8-8 season.....or worse.  It will not result in either Nagy or Pace losing their jobs.  Pace believes in Nagy and the McCaskeys believe in and trust Pace.  This whole team would have to fall completely apart like we did under Emery/Trestman for that to happen and I see zero likelihood of that at all.  This is the Chicago Bears not the revolving door Cleveland Browns.  GMcC and Teddy Bears even insisted Pace hang on to Fox for one more year than we should have just so they didn't have to look bad again paying off the contract of a bad HC while having to hire yet another one.

So.....why are we even wasting our time debating this like maybe it could or should happen and THEN and only THEN will we magically rise to the top.  With who?  Just two years ago both Pace and Nagy earned some post season accolades for their work.  So what happened since?  Did some bad fairy come along and sprinkle "you suck" dust on both of them?  20/12/.625 is a "tire fire" as Windy wants to believe???  No.....Emery/Trestman was a "tire fire" followed by Fox's "dumpster fire" both of which have taken time to extinguish and rebuild from.  And to a great extent we have.

Brothers there is 100x more likelihood you'll read a headline that says Aaron Rodgers asks GB for his release to sign with Chicago than there is that either Nagy, Pace or both will be let go after the 2020 season.  THAT is how sure I am of it so all of this Pace is bad **** is getting really stale and boring.

We've all acknowledged the mistakes as has the author of the OP.  And they are all in the past.  There's not a damn thing that can be done to change any of them or any of the circumstances that may or may not have led to them.  I don't waste my days still trying to figure out why my 2nd marriage failed and who was to blame.  It just did and I've had many years to work on improving me ever since which is all any of can do just as Pace can only look to improve his personnel skills.  The past is lost to us now.

So why don't we spend more time looking forward and analyzing whatever personnel changes need to be made to further strengthen this team?  Wouldn't that make far more sense than Windy's daily doom and gloom sermons on why Pace sucks as a GM and why the offense sucks because Pace sucks and will always suck ad nauseum.  He could save himself a whole lot of time by writing just one post and putting it on a looper.  I could even loan him one I use to record guitar parts I can play over ad nauseum.  Phuc the past.  It's over.  This is season three of a resurrection that began just two years ago.

We aren't there yet as far as a SB contender.  That much I can accept.  How far we are away may be revealed this season if it comes off as anywhere near normal and there is no assurance of that either.  But at least we can hope to gain answers to some questions and doubts.  Let's not let one guy whose head seems to be permanently up his behind......way of looking at stuff govern too much content.  We need to focus forward and see what's left to be done before we can claim the right to be contenders again.  I've been around this team far longer than most members here and seen more emotional roller coaster seasons than most and I don't believe we're that far from it.  If we could at least get to a SB with Rex Grossman at QB how could we possibly be worse off than that now?

[abstract_thought]

This team is not a contender. Contenders win playoff games. Contenders don't have 40-1 Super Bowl odds.

The issue with this team is trajectory. While 2018 was great, the team has not built on that season and is now in win-now mode because they have an unclear QB situation and no financial flexibility to fix it.

[WindyCity]

9 minutes ago, abstract_thought said:

This team is not a contender. Contenders win playoff games. Contenders don't have 40-1 Super Bowl odds.

The issue with this team is trajectory. While 2018 was great, the team has not built on that season and is now in win-now mode because they have an unclear QB situation and no financial flexibility to fix it.

Great point.

2018 was fun. But far from the sustained success that we were promised.

The approach is offense is nonsensical. You have bad/mediocre QBs, but don’t have an offense good enough to support the QB.

[WindyCity]

All Ryan Pace has done is take us back to what we are use to and comfortable with.

Great defense, bad offense and no playoff success.

 

The entire point of getting rid of Jerry and Lovie was to modernize and get an offense... 

[Heinz D.]

9 hours ago, abstract_thought said:

This team is not a contender. Contenders win playoff games. Contenders don't have 40-1 Super Bowl odds.

The issue with this team is trajectory. While 2018 was great, the team has not built on that season and is now in win-now mode because they have an unclear QB situation and no financial flexibility to fix it.

The article is more than  a little wacky...Cohen is a bust, far from the "hit big" pick the article is touting. Also--Adrian Amos, Nick Kwiatowski, and Jordan Howard are no longer on the team. Schwarz apparently has some serious mental problems that prevent him from being a good sports writer. 

That being said, his overall point is sound. And, as to what you posted there, @abstract_thought, this team is ABSOLUTELY a contender. Vegas odds aren't proof of anything. And those Vegas odds will change, drastically, after the first two or three games.

I'll freely admit that I was wrong with that prognostication if I have to. 

But I won't.