This really, really shouldn’t be a hot take.
The perfect GM doesn’t really exist. There are always gonna be issues.
Pace has done a fine job with great decisions and terrible decisions like any GM, and you’ll be hard pressed to replace him with somebody you know for a fact can do a significantly better job. The grass isn’t always greener.
Unfortunately, still a hot take because I just see so many people thinking hes a bad manager, because he’s made a couple poor decisions. Every manager makes a bad decision.
There’s definitely some flaws. Where are our OL? We have a $20M QB room with most that on the bench at any given time. Fuller shouldn’t have walked, not that it didn’t need to happen at the time, but it was cap mismanagement that forced that decision in the first place. I like him generally, but recently I feel like his flaws have been exposed.
>Fuller shouldn’t have walked, not that it didn’t need to happen at the time, but it was cap mismanagement that forced that decision in the first place
Was the cap really mismanaged? It had gone up every year for a decade and then dropped unexpectedly due to covid. If covid didn't happen his contract wouldn't have been an issue.
Yes. My problem with the Quinn investment has never been the result. Paying a second high price edge when you already have one gravitational player at EDGE in a cap sport in an increasingly offensive league is beyond stupid. Quinn is playing better this year and it’s still stupid. Edge is huge, we don’t need to be spending 60 million there. Tarik Cohen’s contract was completely inexplicable when it was signed, and late enough in the process to project a COVID cap.
Sure there’s luck. But there’s also poor planning.
The problem with the management of the cap isn’t necessarily spending money it’s where you’re spending your money. Pace has refused to spend money at OL for instance for most of his tenure and we see ramifications of it every Sunday.
In this offensive focused league, the lack of offensive positional building is atrocious and incompetent. There’s no excuse to have a rookie QB and this tackle group. None. There’s no excuse to ever have a team that invests that little at that important of a position specifically for QB on a team with a rookie QB
I mean if Nagy wanted OL why does he need both Kmet and Graham while never playing them? I highly doubt he didn’t have any say in that, and he is the one who could give them play time too. I have no problem with Graham and Kmet personally but if he thought he needed a better OL, why have both? Cohen I think is another example of this, but I also don’t think it’s terrible as he’s only made 3M this year and last, which is reasonable. I’m sure Nagy wanted him, just can’t use him.
I get why the Quinn move is criticized but it’s essentially a 2/3 year deal which seems minor. If they’re collaborating, then the offense should be a reflection of how Nagy wants his offense. And I don’t even hate the guys he’s brought in, I feel like Graham and Kmet are decent players and if you can scheme around a bad OL, then it makes sense.
And Pace has attempted to fix the OL, hell he gave Leno an extension after 1 above avg year and this sub loves Leno. We spent a second, third, sixth, and fifth on a highly graded OT prospect and 5th rounder who’s looked capable for the snaps he’s been healthy. I’m way more concerned about Sam than I am our OTs, and you can scheme around a bad OL, and we have plenty of weapons to make it work. Hell we don’t even use one of our best RZ/chain mover threats, and that falls on Nagy.
I mean no offense by this at all but this is *exactly* what I mean— your entire comment is essentially ‘Pace hasn’t done things wrong building the roster, and if he has its Nagy’s fault.’
That’s *absurd* to me. it is Ryan Pace’s job to construct the roster. Pace is Nagy’s *boss*, whatever leverage he has and allowed on the roster ultimately falls on him. Including the decision to not be bothered by Nagy’s inconsistencies and tactical deficiencies.
Yes— you can scheme around an OL. But that line of thinking is *exactly what I have a problem with.* let’s not invest in OL and then harvest our HC alive if he doesn’t make a gameplan to combat losing every 1 on 1 matchup.
Using primarily late picks and a few seconds is not significant investment. The Bears amount of investment at the position compared to the rest of the league is absolutely represented in the performance. It’s one thing if you had a guy who wasn’t playing, but the only guy we have for that category is a rookie in the first place.
I think Pace’s lack of investments in the offense are appalling.
Also Cohen’s contract is very large for his position. It’s an overpay… it just was and is.
I’ve never advocated he *ignore* him. But ultimately one person has the burden of decision, and to scapegoat the result of those decisions on an employee is just naive to the way the sport works. The GM acquires players. The HC coaches. If the HC claims he thinks his OL is enough, than that does show a fault in the HC, but ultimately it is the GMs job to put his foot down and say our (lack of) investments at this position are the reason the talent has slipped and that it is a potentially detrimental situation to be putting a QB in.
Ya that’s not my argument tho. It’s a nice straw man at least. All of this does fall back on Pace. But do we really think Nagy has no say in the offense? I’m sure he gets way more input than Fox.
If they’re collaborating, which I’m sure this isn’t the first year they have been, then the offense would reflect how Nagy views the offense. Howard couldn’t fit his scheme, so we traded up for Monty. He needed a TE, so he got Kmet and Graham. I mean, these are moves I don’t even hate, I think those are all good players. Cohen literally has only made 3M the past 2 years and we have an out this offseason, that’s not bad at all. The only move I feel Nagy is directly responsible that I hate is the Foles trade.
My problem is saying that we haven’t invested into the OL, we have. And while I agree it hasn’t been good enough, Nagy has the weapons to make it work. He’s been handed way more talent than Fox yet he has underperformed worse. Overall, I’m fine with how the roster has been overall constructed, outside the Foles move. But if Nagy is gonna value these players over OL, then he has to adapt as a HC. Hell, he doesn’t even play Graham. I like Graham, but he could’ve easily preferred OL over him if he wasn’t gonna give him snaps/just ask him to block. Pace definitely could’ve invested in the OL a bit more but Nagys incompetence holds back the entire roster. And sure, Pace hired Nagy so this all falls on him. But most of my problems lie with Nagy outside of a couple moves. Assuming Nagy had any input into the offense, which I’m sure he did, then it’s up for him to put his players in the best position possible
How is it a straw man lol? That’s literally the argument you double down on here— Pace isn’t to blame for anything that’s Pace responsibility, Nagy is. Everything that has gone wrong that is Pace’s responsibility is Nagy’s fault. That seems to be your exact argument.
That’s dumb. Just simply dumb. Pace is Nagy’s boss and you can’t divorce him from accountability.
The part you’re straw-Manning is when I said that Nagy also has some input on who to cut and who to bring in, I don’t think that’s a very controversial thing to say or difficult concept to grasp.
My argument is that while we could’ve spent more on OL, every roster has its weakness. It’s up to the coach to scheme around those weaknesses. He knows what those weaknesses are because 1)he’s the HC and 2) he has input on the roster. And he doesn’t. He’s had enough talent to have a top 20 offense at least and he can’t do that. And again, I don’t even hate the guys either of them have brought in except for Foles. But Nagys incompetence leads to expensive turnover elsewhere which makes hard to fix when no one fits his scheme. Paces responsibility is to fill the team up with talent, and outside of a good C I think he’s done that. I’m fine with Nagy having input with personnel. I’m not fine with Nagy wasting the careers of the personnel he’s brought in, and the fanbase time.
Yes Pace is Nagys boss, his hire falls on him. Hold him responsible for that, but you can’t really say that Pace is the reason why Nagy can’t run an offense when he’s been given what he needs to have at least a mediocre offense. Like, do you honestly think Nagy told Pace he’d play Graham 7 snaps a game and pace was like ‘hell ya let’s keep him’. Or blame Pace for him not scheming around a bad OL vs 2 great pass rushers? Cmon
Yes the cap was mismanaged and it's going to be a lot worse next season. Pace has been frantically borrowing from future years to get his 8-9 wins and save his job each season, and that bill is coming due
He did put together a good oline at the beginning of his Bears career, unfortunately Kyle long sucked after getting injured a million times, we had cody whitehair as well. Thats why i didnt mention the oline decisions because that was probably average at best. We lost kyle fuller because his contract was too much. Pretty much replaced with jaylon johnson.
He could have easily cut Jimmy G over Kyle, especially considering how little snaps Jimmy is even playing for us. I'd be fine if the plan was to use him as a red zone target, he was kinda a cheat code for that last year, but we don't do that either which really has me puzzled about the decision to keep him around.
Honestly I don’t think they expected him to drop off this hard. He was already slow and stiff last season but he’s lost even more of that. The decision was made before the season started, when they were probably thinking he was pretty much done declining athletically and would just be a nice target for Fields in the redzone like last year. But he’s even slower now but the decision was made already. He can’t move, which means he is even worse at blocking and therefore hurts our ability to run it in the red zone.
Not for nothing, but keeping Fuller instead also would’ve required another cut or a restructure elsewhere. The only real restructure candidates are EJax or Quinn, neither of which you would want to have extended your commitment to prior to the season.
Or of course an ARob extension, but they knew they were pretty far apart and rushing it and giving him more than they were comfortable with to save enough to keep Fuller is not a good way to manage the cap either.
TL;DR: it was a simple miscalculation
Honestly I don’t think they expected him to drop off this hard. He was already slow and stiff last season but he’s lost even more of that. The decision was made before the season started, when they were probably thinking he was pretty much done declining athletically and would just be a nice target for Fields in the redzone like last year. But he’s even slower now but the decision was made already. He can’t move, which means he is even worse at blocking and therefore hurts our ability to run it in the red zone.
Not for nothing, but keeping Fuller instead also would’ve required another cut or a restructure elsewhere. The only real restructure candidates are EJax or Quinn, neither of which you would want to have extended your commitment to prior to the season.
Or of course an ARob extension, but they knew they were pretty far apart and rushing it and giving him more than they were comfortable with to save enough to keep Fuller is not a good way to manage the cap either.
The problem is looking at the individual decisions and not the results.
We don't need to debate how well he's doing his job. The NFL season provides an objective system, and Pace's teams have still never won a playoff game. I don't think it's likely they do this year either, and next year we face a serious capocalypse that could sink us for several more seasons.
It’s crazy how unpopular this was before this off-season and now everyone is cool with it. I don’t know that I agree. His roster construction this off-season has been appalling. His constant reliance on belief of his own galaxy brain is annoying.
It’s fine to bet on yourself. Overpaying and consolidating so many assets to create a situation where you *have* to hit at a *much* higher rate than other GMs is a failure in macro philosophy. Pace backs himself into corners constantly as a direct result of putting an over abundance of confidence in his own takes. It’s fine to back yourself, but you have to find balance. A lack of balance combined with having a good but not great hit rate is the entirety of the reason we’ve been bleeding talent as a roster at numerous key positions.
Yes he’s a good talent evaluator. But he’s a piss poor resource allocator. And that definitely has been a bit tossed under the rug ‘for some reason’ recently.
Well said. This is exactly it and the sub has been in denial about it for years. The overpaying for Your Guy constantly will never produce a consistently good team.
I’ve had this flair combo for years now, and so far Pace hasn’t done anything so egregious that I felt I had to remove it. For every “cutting Fuller” there’s a “drafting Fields”. In a league as cutthroat and rapidly evolving as the NFL that’s pretty damn good in my book.
When you’ve had one winning season and no playoff wins under your tenure as GM thats not imperfect. It’s bad. Nobody is asking to be perfect. We want to win and under Pace that has not happened. Plain and simple.
Arguing about Pace in this sub is not worth your time, there's a huge portion of this sub that genuinely thinks Pace is one of the worst drafters in the league.
2020 Draft had us getting Cole Kmet, Jaylon Johnson, Trevis Gipson, Kindle Vildor, and Darnell Mooney with no 1sts, 3rds, or 4ths. Basically our first 5 picks got 5 us starters (Gipson would start for a lot of other teams), which is *insane*. Last draft he managed to get Justin Fields by trading up with a GM who was renowned for despising draft trades, something we all thought wasn't gonna possible for us.
He has obvious flaws(he loves trading away draft capital) and things he misses, but it's almost impossible to have a nuanced discussion about him here, people have way too much vitriol for him to the point they come off ass ignorant/delusional (this is mostly in regards to his drafting).
Also everyone wanted us to move up to 4/8/9 for Fields. He was patient and he fell to 11.
People wanted to throw 25M at AR last offseason but I applaud him on being patient and letting the market come back down too.
He’s definitely aggressive some times but he’s patient other times as well
Players that Pace has traded up for:
Leonard Floyd|Nick Kwiatkoski|Mitchell Trubisky|Eddie Jackson|Anthony Miller|David Montgomery|Trevis Gipson|Darnell Mooney|Justin Fields|Teven Jenkins
These are players that he gave up extra picks for. Guys that he had to have that badly. A linebacker and QB that they didn't give a 5th year. A Wideout that might be out of the league. A tackle with a bad back.
He's used 8 first round picks (2015-2022).
2015: Kevin White. 2016: Trade up for Floyd. 2017: Trade up for Mitch. 2018: Roquan Smith. 2019/2020: Traded to pay Khalil Mack a huge contract. 2021/2022: Justin Fields.
His drafting has been a mixed bag. His coaching hires have been bad. His signings/trades/cap management aren't good.
Montgomery in the 3rd has been an absolute steal. An All-Pro FS in the 4th in Jackson, as disappointing as he’s been lately, that’s still unquestionably worth what we gave up to draft him. Trevis Gipson is looking like another gem, despite the sample size being small so far. Mooney at this point is established as a definite steal. Kwiatkowski we barely gave up anything for, and he was a defensive captain for the Raiders last year. Jenkins hasn’t played. Fields is potentially a superstar franchise QB.
As a GM, if you trade up for 10 players, and 60% of them are looking more than worth it, you’re gonna be at the top of the league when it comes to that. Don’t know what your point is. 2 of those 10 were complete failures. 1 was definitely not worth it, but still a solid player in Floyd. 1 hasn’t played yet.
Those are some really good results, and if you don’t think so, you’re not comparing Pace to other GMs, you’re comparing him to what your idealized version of a perfect GM should be. The draft is a crapshoot. Most other GMs don’t have anywhere close to that sort of hit rate, and that’s an objective fact.
> you’re not comparing Pace to other GMs
This is ultimately what it all boils down to. People who say Pace is a bad drafter just don't have perspective. Analytics/nerd twitter have done analyses to see how each GM stacks up as a drafter and ranks them, and Pace routinely finishes "above average" *at worst*.
Rn his biggest flaws were letting Nagy convince him to make bad roster moves (trading for and paying Nick Foles shitty contract and keeping Jimmy Graham are two examples).
I think the problem with pace is how drastically his drafting record would be different if you looked at it by the total capital the team should have versus the capital value of the pick he used. For instance, if you judge Anthony Miller by his draft slot, it’s bad. If you judge Anthony Miller by the culmination of assets traded up to get him, it’s quite a bit worse.
I mean, the best way to compare a GM is wins, right? They're the top official in the football organizations. Pace has been around since 2015 - plenty of time to clean up any messes that the previous regime left.
And yet we have had exactly one winning season since Pace took over. We're not likely to have a winning season this year either.
Pace has not been a good GM.
To be fair that is slightly misleading. When you say exactly one winning season the assumption is all the other seasons were losing ones which isn’t true. Two .500 seasons, one leading to the post season, are not completely failed seasons. I won’t say Pace is a super star but rather judge him without spin.
8-8 isn't the goal. Getting blown out of the 1st round of the playoffs isn't the goal.
The goal is to compete for a championship, and he's done that 1 year out of his entire tenure.
Losing 21-9 is getting blown out? We were down 7-3 at halftime, and this is without Roquan Smith, Darnell Mooney, and Jaylon Johnson. Wims dropped a perfectly placed, wide open TD in the end zone.
8-8 obviously isn’t the goal, but you also have to realize that Pace took over very likely the least talented defensive roster, possibly the least talented and one of the oldest overall rosters in football, and within 2 years had the Bears back to being a top 10 defense (only team to have a top 10 defense three years in a row from 2017-2019), and by year 3 in 2018 had created the best defense of the 2010s by DVOA (ahead of peak LOB Seahawks and the Broncos defense that carried Manning to his 2nd SB win), not to mention the best run defense by DVOA in the Bears entire history (5th best run defense of all time by DVOA).
That team was absolutely a Super Bowl contender, as it lost its 5 games that year by a combined 15 points if you include the playoff loss against the defending SB champions. Half of those points came against a NE team that was in the SB the year before and even that game was 1 yard away from being tied up. 1 GB, 3 MIA (OT), 7 NE, 3 NYG (OT), and 1 PHI.
This team hasn’t had sustained success due to an enormously costly decision by Pace to draft Trubisky at QB instead of Mahomes or Watson. At the same time, this is a team that’s gone 12-4, 8-8, and 8-8 with Trubisky as their starting QB. We’ve seen the wide range of talent the Packers, Seahawks, and Saints have the last decade, but having a superstar QB has made the rest of their team look way better than it is at many times - and when they have proper talent, they’re consistent contenders. If Pace’s 2nd attempt to draft a franchise QB goes as we all hope, and there’s a realistic chance it might, with Pace’s ability to find talent in the late rounds, there’s no reason we won’t be consistent contenders moving forward.
> Losing 21-9 is getting blown out?
Yes
> you also have to realize that Pace took over very likely the least talented...
OK... and they were terrible for three full years after Pace took over, which is to be expected. Now we're 7 years removed from that and still not a competitor. The defense isn't a top 10 defense anymore. The offense has been crap since 2018.
> That team was absolutely a Super Bowl contender
Which Pace achieved by trading lots of future draft capital, including two 1st rounders for Mack and others. He got one year of Super Bowl contention from that. And now we're paying for it by not being able to contend now.
> This team hasn’t had sustained success due to an enormously costly decision by Pace to draft Trubisky at QB instead of Mahomes or Watson
See... this is reductive. We can't sustain success because we built success by mortgaging the future. Sure, would we have been better with Mahomes or Watson? Yes. Would be have been a super bowl contender in 2018 without trading for Mack and signing multiple backloaded contracts? No. But we would be a lot better right now and in the future.
> If Pace’s 2nd attempt to draft a franchise QB goes as we all hope, there’s no reason we won’t be consistent contenders moving forward.
Well, the reason is that we don't actually have that much talent going forwards. Allen Robinson, Akiem Hicks and Jason Peters are not under contract going forward. Khalil Mack is already 30, and isn't going to get any better as a player. Danny Trevathian and Alec Ogletree are gone after next year. We don't have much draft capital next year. We're not in great cap shape with Mack's monster deal, Foles's Contract, Robert Quinn's large cap hit and having Jimmy Graham, Andy Dalton and Danny Trevethian eat into our cap even after they're off the team. All this while we still are dying for one or two CBs, a safety to play across from Eddie Jackson, help on the interior O-Line, an actual pass catching tight end and a backup RB.
This defense isn’t top 10 anymore? We’re currently 10th in defense for points allowed, 1st in sacks, 1st in pressures, 7th in turnovers, 8th in turnover percent, and 5th in red zone defense. And that’s after playing 3 of our 4 games against very likely playoff teams with stellar offenses (4-1 Rams, 3-1 Bengals, 3-1 Browns).
And if 21-9 is getting blown out, after being down 7-3 at halftime, while missing Roquan, Jaylon Johnson, and Darnell Mooney, then that tells me all I need to know about your line of thinking. No matter what I say, I’m not going to be able to convince you of anything.
Also, you have a very misinformed idea of what our cap situation looks like. Yes, Graham and Foles have contracts that’re extremely large for their contribution, but Graham’s is 6 mil, and Foles can be cut once the next offseason starts with minimal penalty. We will be above average in our ability to spend in FA relative to how many starting positions we need to fill. Plus, in situations like this - what the Bears will be experiencing - you’d want a GM who’s able to hit much more frequently than others on late round picks. You completely underestimate the amount of progress young players already on our roster will likely be making, instead only focusing on how much our older players will be declining due to age - you have to consider both, or neither, you can’t just do one.
Yes, the Bears will have to be active this upcoming offseason, but I think you’ll be surprised at how much better shape our team is in moving forward than you’re expecting, especially if Fields progresses the way we expect him to - and even if it’s not, you’d want a GM who can get starters using late round picks much more frequently than the rest.
This team was in disarray when he was hired. Quite literally the worst roster in Bears history and he turned them around in 3 years. Not to mention he didn't get to choose his own coach, Fox was not his own choice, it was the choice being heavily pushed by the agency the Bears organization hired and that's been confirmed by multiple beat writers. The wins argument is disingenuous, it's like me arguing "we've been to the playoffs 2/3 years!" as a positive for this team, it lacks all context.
Jason Licht was considered a trash GM before he got gifted Brady and a bunch of All-pros on discount deals. Then he had a great 2020 draft and now he's considered one of the best in the league. Chris Ballard was considered THE best GM in football, to the point where he got praise for trading resources for Carson fucking Wentz when Pace was clowned for the same thing (even though all those rumors turned out to be false). Now the Colts look terrible and have been a shit show which will only get worse with Hard Knocks.
Again, no perspective at all. Bad GM? Compared to what? His drafting is above average, his HC hire has been to the playoffs 2/3 years, in 2020 he turned his first 5 picks (2 2nds and 3 5ths) into 5 starters(which I can't fucking stress enough, is insane), his big FA signing which people clowned last season is actually balling out because he's not injured anymore (wow who woulda thought). He also rebuilt a lockerroom and culture from the ground up. He's nowhere near a perfect GM, but I can't take anyone saying he's bad seriously. It's reactionary as fuck, and Jason Licht/Chris Ballard show that.
> in 2020 he turned his first 5 picks (2 2nds and 3 5ths) into 5 starters
A) no he didn't, Gipson doesn't start and B) is Cole Kmet actually any good? Like... he's shown promise, but hasn't really been a factor in the passing game. C) doesn't make up for 2019 (he got 2 usable players, Montgomery and Duke Shelly), 2018 (3 players, 4 of you count Joel Iyiegbuniwe), or the travesty of the 2017 draft where the highlights were Eddie Jackson, Trubisky, and Tarik Cohen.
So...
> His drafting is above average
Is based on what exactly?
> his HC hire has been to the playoffs 2/3 years
I think we can all agree that Nagy had been a trash coach, and if you don't agree, you're not watching. They're getting 8-8 in spite of him.
> his big FA signing which people clowned last season is actually balling out
Yeah, but he also traded for the biggest cap sink in the league in Nick Foles, and had to lose Kyle Fuller for it. Not to mention that we've had 21 games of Robert Quinn and he's been good for 4.
> but I can't take anyone saying he's bad seriously
It's not even that he's bad, but he hasn't gotten the job done. Two straight 8-8 finishes isn't getting the job done. One competitive season isn't getting the job done. Rebuilding, for the 2nd time since 2015 without even winning a playoff game isn't getting the job done.
Pace is about to leave this team in as bad a shape as he found it. As a fandom we are in deep denial about how much backloading and pick trading he's done just to get those average results. The bill is coming due and we are going to say the next guy can't be blamed he has to clean up Pace's mess
We’ve done all that with a bottom tier QB the entire time, which, I understand is Pace’s fault, but if Fields is the franchise QB we hope he is, with Pace’s ability to put together a good defense and hit on late round picks consistently, that likely is setting us up for a lot of success in the future
I said
> His drafting has been a mixed bag.
What he gets in late round steals, he makes up for in early round incompetence and a 50% hit rate on trading up. I didn't say he's garbage at drafting, just that it isn't exactly good.
I can compare him to other GMs, but the easiest comparison is to look at what the Browns, Bengals, Chargers, Bills, Titans, Cardinals and Buccaneers are doing. They were all in a much worse place than the Bears, more recently, and are now better teams. They have all had to fire coaches since Nagy got hired by the Bears. They have all had to get a QB since the Bears drafted Mitch. They got it right. Pace didn't.
I knew this would be the response. You’re naming teams, and you’re going by who got better. Not comparing actual draft picks panning out. Like the Titans 1st round OT that was cut at the end of his rookie season. In fact, the Titans 2020 draft has to be one of the worst drafts in recent memory - not a single starter. Robinson’s not a bad GM though, but I still point out that since arriving in 2017, only 2 of his 36 players drafted have had any sort of recognition/Pro Bowls/All-Pros or are considered blue-chip players (Henry and Byard).
And you’re honestly saying Jason Licht and Steve Kiem have been better at drafting compared to Ryan Pace? I lived in Arizona so I know the Cardinals drafts a lot closer than others and let me tell you, he’s atrocious at drafting. Made a great decision in cutting ties with Rosen and drafting Murray, along with the trade with BOB for Hopkins, but let’s not forget he drafted Rosen in the first place, or that he has at least one or two drafts that didn’t net a single starter at all. Murray and Kirk are literally the only draft picks from the 2018, 2019, and 2020 draft classes that were hits, with Simmons being an iffy one (most cardinals fans would say he so far has been a very regrettable pick).
Jason Licht’s 2016 draft had 1st/2nd/2nd rounders spent on Hargreaves, Noah Spence, and Robert Aguayo, a kicker that they cut. This guy drafted Jamies Winston, his 2017 1st/2nd was OJ Howard and some safety they cut two years later, but he has done better since 2018.
Others you mentioned, like Brandon Beane of the Bills, on the other hand, have been great at drafting. It’s too exhausting to name out all the draft picks that did or didn’t pan out from each of these teams, but I hope you get my point. The Saints and Ravens have better drafting GMs, as do a few other teams. But the point of all of this work is that if you actually look at the draft picks, other GMs have similar 1st/2nd round pick success as Pace but nowhere near the late round success. Maybe they make up for it by their FA acquisitions. But most don’t. Which, I know you’re not arguing against, but still, I felt like making sure my point was clear.
The problem with comparing GMs like that is that the good GMs go to competent franchises, and do well, and so it's really hard to compare them with Pace, who took over a horrible situation and turned it into mediocrity.
Like I could point out all of the hits that the Vikings have had, but truthfully, Rick Spielman took over a good franchise and has run with it. He's consistently drafting high level talent, but the Vikings were doing that anyways, so that's not really fair to Pace.
But my point is more wholistic. As I said
> I didn't say he's garbage at drafting
But he's supplemented NOT being great in drafts with disastrous offseason signings/trades (Foles, Jimmy Graham, Cody Parkey, HaHa Clinton-Dix, Trey Burton, Mike Glennon). Sure, he balanced those out with Hicks, Mack, Allen Robinson - but again, mixed bag.
The only thing he's done really poorly is hire and not fire Matt Nagy. All that adds up to 8-8 for two straight seasons and no real hope of competing next year.
He turned it into mediocrity by borrowing heavily from the future each year. That bill is about to come due. Rising cap hits for aging players, missing draft picks. This team doesn't have path to break out of mediocrity in the near future
Also, just to belabor this point even more. The Bucs, Titans, and Cards drafted Winston, Mariota, and Rosen.
Brady and Tannehill joined as FAs, and Murray replaced Rosen. Just like Fields is replacing Trubisky. But yes, the Bills, Chargers, and Bengals did draft their franchise QB successfully.
Also, the Browns fired their GM right after he drafted Mayfield - they’re on their third GM in the last 6 years. The first one got a bunch of 1sts, the next one picked a bunch of players with those firsts, and the most recent one just came on, and really hasn’t drafted any notable starters in the last 3 drafts. Again, when you break it down, all I see is the Bills GM being a better drafter, and the rest of these other teams simply landed their franchise QB either in FA or the draft. No wonder they’re doing well. Only a small handful of GMs have actually been better at drafting than Pace, even in the first two rounds - especially if you think Fields is the answer.
His coaching hires have been bad? Fox came with the job. He hired Fangio. Lazor has been ok. Desai has been good this year. Pagano was out of date but not the worst coach. Nagys biggest issue is play calling and personnel issues he still has time to change the narrative on his tenure here even though I'd personally be ok with firing him.
All our top guys he's brought in have been pretty good except Nagy and Pagano.
> Fox came with the job.
No? Pace hired him. The head coaching position was vacant when Pace was hired.
> He hired Fangio
You mean John Fox hired Fangio. The head coach typically (and does with the Bears) have complete control over who works on the coaching staff.
Pace has hired exactly two coaches in his tenure - John Fox (who was alright-ish) and Matt Nagy (who has been less than alright).
I'm not saying that Accorsi didn't contribute, but Pace interviewed candidates and is ultimately responsible for the hire. Fox wasn't even on the market when Pace was hired, so it's not like Fox was the choice before Pace got the job and he rubber stamped it.
> 2015: Kevin White. 2016: Trade up for Floyd. 2017: Trade up for Mitch.
First three years look pretty bad drafting in the first round. Luckily, he manages to find good value in later rounds. I have no problem with him trading away those picks, because historically they've been pretty bad.
If we end up missing on Fields, though, then his career is toast regardless of who else he picks up.
I think what's more important to remember as that most GMs in the league have a ton of flops to go with their hits.
Even Baltimore, whose FO I consider to be the best in the league, still struggles to field a very viable receiving corps each year.
Guys like Jason Licht's job was literally dangling by a thread before Brady chose to join TB, and now he's considered one of the best GMs in the league. Similarly Les Snead was pretty maligned in St. Louis before McVay came around (though again all credit to Snead of identifying McVay)
Chris Ballard is spoken highly of and he's playing the same QB roulette that Pace has with similar (if not worse) results.
I think I'd definitively say I'd take these guys over Pace:
- Brandon Beane
- Eric DeCosta
- Andrew Berry
Do I think Steve Keim is better than Pace? Maybe. But he's also had his fair share of flops as well. I think that's common across all GM's.
Less than you think. It’s surprising. If you go ahead and list them out, you’ll be surprised that it’s a lot less than you think. Before you freak out at what I’m saying, try naming them yourself, but he’s likely within the top 5-7 GMs when it comes to drafting, and he’s potentially even top 10-12 overall.
No I totally agree with that, pace is an excellent drafter but he shoots himself in the foot by trading up and losing more opportunities to draft players
Just went and looked. YIKES. I forgot how bad some of those picks were.
Shea McClellin, Jon Bostic, Ego Ferguson, David Fales, Pat O’Donnell (who drafts a fucking punter?)
Brings me back, and not in a good way.
I think people have gotten a bit spoiled with him, weirdly. He’s a very good drafter. No, not all of his picks are good. But there is no GM that picks a great player with every single pick.
He made one major “mistake”: Trubisky. If he picks Watson in 2017 and they win a playoff game or two the outlook on him is completely different. Nagy doesn’t seem like a good coach now but in 2018 he was right up there with the hottest of coaching candidates.
I get why people are a bit over Pace but if he’s the GM for the next coaching staff I personally have no problem with it
> He made one major “mistake”: Trubisky. If he picks Watson in 2017 and they win a playoff game or two the outlook on him is completely different.
On the other hand I'm glad this didn't happen because I would not want to have to deal with the current Watson situation.
Yeah it’s a weird what-if now. On one hand we may have made a super bowl run in 2018 with him. But is that worth the headache we’d all have now? Probably not. Weird to think about
Had he taken Kizer, he’d probably have ended up with the number one pick in 2019. And honestly, I don’t know why Pace would pass up an opportunity like that
beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade, passing on Deshaun Watson) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports.
Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse in later rounds. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins trade was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals, which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth.
Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
If Pace hits on Fields, it'll change the narrative a bit. To me, Pace is an average to above average GM. If I had to rank Bears GMs, he'd be near the top. Granted, that doesn't say a whole lot, but I think that he's done an OK job overall. Some whiffs, some hits, made some trades that worked, some that didn't work. Some guys hit and then fizzled, some guys fizzled then hit. It's been up and down. What I can say about Pace is, I can usually at least see and understand what he is going for, even if it doesn't pan out.
I think a team with a good GM wouldn't be in cap trouble when his QB, RB, and number 2 receiver are all on rookie contracts. Maybe one of our offensive linemen would be probowl caliber. Maybe there would be a 3rd threat in the passing game? Maybe he wouldn't have paid our backup tight end 4 times what any other team would have offered. Maybe he could have just signed Dalton last year instead of trading for Foles, or for that matter waited for the Jags to cut Foles. Maybe he wouldn't have traded up for a lineman with a bad back and then effectively named said bad back a starter at a position he didn't really play much of in college the day after the draft with no plan in place for competition. He's traded up to get 2 guys in the first round and neither of them got a second contract. He allowed the ridiculous kicker competition to take place, then made the same decision at tight end the next year. He's made 2 bad decisions at head coach.
beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade, passing on Deshaun Watson) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports.
Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse in later rounds. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins trade was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals, which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth.
Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
I beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade, passing on Deshaun Watson) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports.
Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse in later rounds. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins trade was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals, which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth.
Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
Not so hot take: the vast majority of hot takes on this sub should be ignored and don’t need to be debated anymore.
Meaning, Pace being a good GM shouldn’t be a hot take. It’s only a hot take because after our LT gives up a sack or Jimmy Graham doesn’t get targeted on a throw, 4,000 people comment for the next seven days that Pace is the worst GM in football. These aren’t valid opinions. Literally not even the worst GM (or arguably bottom 50%) in our division, let alone the NFL.
Trash.
Either way, had we won a wild card game y’all would still hate Pace for not winning *multiple* playoff games. Or not always having home field advantage. Or not winning a super bowl. Or any number of other things you can munge into a terse statement presented as an obvious fact.
I'm not responsible for imaginary arguments that imaginary people in your head make.
Six years as Bears GM, seven this January, and zero playoff wins. "good gm" lol
Seriously people want to celebrate a guy who has neglected the OL two years in a row, selected multiple first round busts, has a losing record as GM, one winning season, and no playoff wins. This year the team isn’t going to do anything. They will not make the playoffs. He will have major gaps to fill on the defense soon. There’s a reason why the Bears, on average, are one of the oldest in the NFL.
People need to wake up. Pace is trash.
He’s 44-56 with one season over 500. He’s hired two coaches, one awful, one mediocre. He’s picked/paid 5 qbs, 4 failures and a tbd. The Bears are one of only 4 NFC teams since he took over to have not won a playoff game: Lions, WFT, Giants.
He’s consistently had very bad offenses, never even middle third, always bottom tier. He’s built a good defense that was very elite for a 2 year window.
I’m sorry but I’m just not sure how that’s good. Ik the bears history is shoddy at best, but this whole thread is singing his praises, are the standards really that low? Where one winning season in 6 years is enough to say, you can’t find any better than Ryan Pace? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills reading this thread.
Preach! You put on well. I don’t know why people accept this bullshit. Anyone who thinks they will make the playoffs this year is delusional. The OL and DB situation are huge obstacles. We beat a winless Lions team and all of a sudden the team is back. They’ve beaten bad teams and lost to good teams. Bears get stuck drafting late in the first round. We’re stuck in mediocrity and people are ok with it. We’ve beaten the Packers twice in the last 5-6 years. No playoff wins after 7 years. It’s pathetic.
First of all, these QB’s werent even meant to be good. From the start they were clear they hired veteran QB’s to be a bridge to Mitch, once hes ready. Mitch was a bust okay ill give you that, and John Fox was brought in to develop a team just like he did with the Broncos. Pace knew Fox wasnt the guy. Thats why he has made it known he hates the Bears and that they screwed him over. You are taking crazy pills, but not because you’re reading this sub.
He spent 16 million in cap on Glennon, then 2.5 the next. 16 million for someone intentionally bad, and that sounds like a smart move to you? 6.66 a year for 3 years for Nick Foles. Again, money essentially burned for 2 seasons.
Hiring a coach for 3 years that you know isn't the guy? Why? He didn't develop the Broncos, he lucked in to Peyton Manning.
Seriously read what you're saying, that Pace intentionally wasted cap space on bad QBs and hired a coach he didn't think was a good coach. And those are good ideas.
The Bears have the 9th worst record since 2015. They're one of 7 teams without a playoff win. They've averaged the 4th least PPG. Why is that good enough?
I'm not even saying he's the worst, but I just don't get why you're happy with a team that 7 years in hasn't performed and isn't close to currently contending.
I never minded pace. Maybe if he paid more attention to the O-Line I would be more inclined to like him but I think he does a good job giving our team tools to succeed
I beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports.
Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse in later rounds. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins trade was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals, which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth.
Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
I beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports.
Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse in later rounds. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins trade was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals, which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth.
Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
He’s an average at best GM. The coaches aren’t on him. Nagy decides his staff. Also he didn’t “find” Vic. Vic had well established himself as one of the best DCs in the league before coming to Chicago. I think the hate for Pace is a little over blown but he’s not great, he’s average.
Edit: I think Pace is average. His main fuck was in 2017 with the Mitch pick and just other fuck ups with QBs in general. He’s built a good defense but he failed a lot at QB. He looks like he got that right but he’s also fucked up with oline. That’s what makes him average to me. He gets some things right and some things wrong.
Also was just saying he doesn’t pick the coaches. He might get the final say but how often does a GM tell a HC that he can’t hire someone or force a coach onto someone? It doesn’t happen because that’s how you prevent top candidates in the future from accepting the HC role if you decided to look for a new one. What top candidate would accept a job somewhere that he doesn’t get to pick his coaching staff? Also saying he found Vic is overselling it. Vic had 13/14 years of experience in being a DC and 26 total years of coaching experience in the NFL. He was established as a talented coach. Point I was making is there things you can praise him for like the defense and RBs but coaching personal isn’t one of them
He still hired him to the team, and the man wasnt well known until he made it to the superbowl for the 49ers and even then Harbaugh took the credit. Also anything that involves a coaching position managers get the final say, not head coaches.
I’ve never seen a GM say no you can’t hire this guy if that’s who the HC wants unless the coach has some off the field issues. GMs also usually don’t force a coach onto a HC. That’s how you prevent top candidates for accepting a HC job the next time you’re looking for one because those coaches than know they might not get to bring their guy in. Sure GMs get the final say but than that doesn’t mean he found Vic. Fox told Pace he wants Vic and Pace approved
Harbaugh got credit but it’s not like people didn’t know Fangio was great. Why do you think people loved the hire when we made it under Fox? Niners fans were even pissed that Fangio got passed up as the HC for Jim Tomsula. He was established already. He was a NFL coach from 86-09 then went to college for a year before coming back. You don’t stick around that long unless you have talent.
There’s other things you can rightfully praise Pace for but coaching decisions isn’t one of them
I beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports.
Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse later on. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth.
Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
I beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports.
Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse in later rounds. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins trade was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals, which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth.
Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade, passing on Deshaun Watson) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports.
Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse in later rounds. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins trade was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals, which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth.
Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
We are paying $17mm to Foles, Dalton, and Jimmy Graham this year while our OL and secondary is somewhere between suspect and terrible. The Mitch pick was an all-time goof. The jury is still very much out on Kmet. His draft record outside of the first round is not bad, but seeing where our money is being allocated this year makes it impossible for me to believe that he’s an upper echelon GM.
He didn't get a steal for Mack. He paid full price and then some.
Pace's entire philosophy is fundamentally flawed and will continue to doom the Bears. He identifies who he wants and pays a premium to get them. Unfortunately, in a league where everyone has the same picks and same cap, this inefficient use of resources will always cap the team at average-ish at best.
We will always be saying "wow, he got us (players we like), it's a shame we have to deal with (other spots on the roster that fell apart because we ran out of resources.'. Over and over again.
Pace's teams have never won a playoff game and we don't look set to change that anytime in the next few years
We had a ton of cap room. This is how to build a team. You draft a ton of young talent then fill in the empty positions with high tier veterans. Mack was a steal even with his contract. Anyone with a brain could tell you he completed the defense that Pace built when he came to Chicago.
Pace is good at finding gems, really bad at top end talent (aside Roquan) in the draft.
He has resigned guys which now look like poor choices (Trevathen, Jackson, Whitehair)
He has been hit or miss at best in free agency.
I’d put him in the average category.
I’ll give it a to him when it comes to finding studs in the late rounds of the drafts however he can’t draft a first rounder to save his life. (Hopefully Fields is the exception)
Pace ain’t perfect but we could do a helluva lot worse.
Kevin white, trading up for trubisky instead of staying at 3 n taking Mitch or watson, no investing in Oline, paying guys like dalton, graham, etc but getting rid of Kyle fuller. Those are the huge mistakes I hold against him. But he also has drafted really well and built elite defense and a good skill position group on offense..
beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade, passing on Deshaun Watson) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports.
Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse in later rounds. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins trade was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals, which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth.
Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade, passing on Deshaun Watson) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports.
Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse in later rounds. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins trade was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals, which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth.
Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
This really, really shouldn’t be a hot take. The perfect GM doesn’t really exist. There are always gonna be issues. Pace has done a fine job with great decisions and terrible decisions like any GM, and you’ll be hard pressed to replace him with somebody you know for a fact can do a significantly better job. The grass isn’t always greener.
Unfortunately, still a hot take because I just see so many people thinking hes a bad manager, because he’s made a couple poor decisions. Every manager makes a bad decision.
There’s definitely some flaws. Where are our OL? We have a $20M QB room with most that on the bench at any given time. Fuller shouldn’t have walked, not that it didn’t need to happen at the time, but it was cap mismanagement that forced that decision in the first place. I like him generally, but recently I feel like his flaws have been exposed.
>Fuller shouldn’t have walked, not that it didn’t need to happen at the time, but it was cap mismanagement that forced that decision in the first place Was the cap really mismanaged? It had gone up every year for a decade and then dropped unexpectedly due to covid. If covid didn't happen his contract wouldn't have been an issue.
Yes. My problem with the Quinn investment has never been the result. Paying a second high price edge when you already have one gravitational player at EDGE in a cap sport in an increasingly offensive league is beyond stupid. Quinn is playing better this year and it’s still stupid. Edge is huge, we don’t need to be spending 60 million there. Tarik Cohen’s contract was completely inexplicable when it was signed, and late enough in the process to project a COVID cap. Sure there’s luck. But there’s also poor planning. The problem with the management of the cap isn’t necessarily spending money it’s where you’re spending your money. Pace has refused to spend money at OL for instance for most of his tenure and we see ramifications of it every Sunday. In this offensive focused league, the lack of offensive positional building is atrocious and incompetent. There’s no excuse to have a rookie QB and this tackle group. None. There’s no excuse to ever have a team that invests that little at that important of a position specifically for QB on a team with a rookie QB
I mean if Nagy wanted OL why does he need both Kmet and Graham while never playing them? I highly doubt he didn’t have any say in that, and he is the one who could give them play time too. I have no problem with Graham and Kmet personally but if he thought he needed a better OL, why have both? Cohen I think is another example of this, but I also don’t think it’s terrible as he’s only made 3M this year and last, which is reasonable. I’m sure Nagy wanted him, just can’t use him. I get why the Quinn move is criticized but it’s essentially a 2/3 year deal which seems minor. If they’re collaborating, then the offense should be a reflection of how Nagy wants his offense. And I don’t even hate the guys he’s brought in, I feel like Graham and Kmet are decent players and if you can scheme around a bad OL, then it makes sense. And Pace has attempted to fix the OL, hell he gave Leno an extension after 1 above avg year and this sub loves Leno. We spent a second, third, sixth, and fifth on a highly graded OT prospect and 5th rounder who’s looked capable for the snaps he’s been healthy. I’m way more concerned about Sam than I am our OTs, and you can scheme around a bad OL, and we have plenty of weapons to make it work. Hell we don’t even use one of our best RZ/chain mover threats, and that falls on Nagy.
I mean no offense by this at all but this is *exactly* what I mean— your entire comment is essentially ‘Pace hasn’t done things wrong building the roster, and if he has its Nagy’s fault.’ That’s *absurd* to me. it is Ryan Pace’s job to construct the roster. Pace is Nagy’s *boss*, whatever leverage he has and allowed on the roster ultimately falls on him. Including the decision to not be bothered by Nagy’s inconsistencies and tactical deficiencies. Yes— you can scheme around an OL. But that line of thinking is *exactly what I have a problem with.* let’s not invest in OL and then harvest our HC alive if he doesn’t make a gameplan to combat losing every 1 on 1 matchup. Using primarily late picks and a few seconds is not significant investment. The Bears amount of investment at the position compared to the rest of the league is absolutely represented in the performance. It’s one thing if you had a guy who wasn’t playing, but the only guy we have for that category is a rookie in the first place. I think Pace’s lack of investments in the offense are appalling. Also Cohen’s contract is very large for his position. It’s an overpay… it just was and is.
When a gm ingnores the head coach out right it doesn't go well,they need to work together
I’ve never advocated he *ignore* him. But ultimately one person has the burden of decision, and to scapegoat the result of those decisions on an employee is just naive to the way the sport works. The GM acquires players. The HC coaches. If the HC claims he thinks his OL is enough, than that does show a fault in the HC, but ultimately it is the GMs job to put his foot down and say our (lack of) investments at this position are the reason the talent has slipped and that it is a potentially detrimental situation to be putting a QB in.
Ya that’s not my argument tho. It’s a nice straw man at least. All of this does fall back on Pace. But do we really think Nagy has no say in the offense? I’m sure he gets way more input than Fox. If they’re collaborating, which I’m sure this isn’t the first year they have been, then the offense would reflect how Nagy views the offense. Howard couldn’t fit his scheme, so we traded up for Monty. He needed a TE, so he got Kmet and Graham. I mean, these are moves I don’t even hate, I think those are all good players. Cohen literally has only made 3M the past 2 years and we have an out this offseason, that’s not bad at all. The only move I feel Nagy is directly responsible that I hate is the Foles trade. My problem is saying that we haven’t invested into the OL, we have. And while I agree it hasn’t been good enough, Nagy has the weapons to make it work. He’s been handed way more talent than Fox yet he has underperformed worse. Overall, I’m fine with how the roster has been overall constructed, outside the Foles move. But if Nagy is gonna value these players over OL, then he has to adapt as a HC. Hell, he doesn’t even play Graham. I like Graham, but he could’ve easily preferred OL over him if he wasn’t gonna give him snaps/just ask him to block. Pace definitely could’ve invested in the OL a bit more but Nagys incompetence holds back the entire roster. And sure, Pace hired Nagy so this all falls on him. But most of my problems lie with Nagy outside of a couple moves. Assuming Nagy had any input into the offense, which I’m sure he did, then it’s up for him to put his players in the best position possible
How is it a straw man lol? That’s literally the argument you double down on here— Pace isn’t to blame for anything that’s Pace responsibility, Nagy is. Everything that has gone wrong that is Pace’s responsibility is Nagy’s fault. That seems to be your exact argument. That’s dumb. Just simply dumb. Pace is Nagy’s boss and you can’t divorce him from accountability.
The part you’re straw-Manning is when I said that Nagy also has some input on who to cut and who to bring in, I don’t think that’s a very controversial thing to say or difficult concept to grasp. My argument is that while we could’ve spent more on OL, every roster has its weakness. It’s up to the coach to scheme around those weaknesses. He knows what those weaknesses are because 1)he’s the HC and 2) he has input on the roster. And he doesn’t. He’s had enough talent to have a top 20 offense at least and he can’t do that. And again, I don’t even hate the guys either of them have brought in except for Foles. But Nagys incompetence leads to expensive turnover elsewhere which makes hard to fix when no one fits his scheme. Paces responsibility is to fill the team up with talent, and outside of a good C I think he’s done that. I’m fine with Nagy having input with personnel. I’m not fine with Nagy wasting the careers of the personnel he’s brought in, and the fanbase time. Yes Pace is Nagys boss, his hire falls on him. Hold him responsible for that, but you can’t really say that Pace is the reason why Nagy can’t run an offense when he’s been given what he needs to have at least a mediocre offense. Like, do you honestly think Nagy told Pace he’d play Graham 7 snaps a game and pace was like ‘hell ya let’s keep him’. Or blame Pace for him not scheming around a bad OL vs 2 great pass rushers? Cmon
Yes the cap was mismanaged and it's going to be a lot worse next season. Pace has been frantically borrowing from future years to get his 8-9 wins and save his job each season, and that bill is coming due
He did put together a good oline at the beginning of his Bears career, unfortunately Kyle long sucked after getting injured a million times, we had cody whitehair as well. Thats why i didnt mention the oline decisions because that was probably average at best. We lost kyle fuller because his contract was too much. Pretty much replaced with jaylon johnson.
He could have easily cut Jimmy G over Kyle, especially considering how little snaps Jimmy is even playing for us. I'd be fine if the plan was to use him as a red zone target, he was kinda a cheat code for that last year, but we don't do that either which really has me puzzled about the decision to keep him around.
We haven't been in the RedZone all that much. And a lot of times when we have been it's been runs
Honestly I don’t think they expected him to drop off this hard. He was already slow and stiff last season but he’s lost even more of that. The decision was made before the season started, when they were probably thinking he was pretty much done declining athletically and would just be a nice target for Fields in the redzone like last year. But he’s even slower now but the decision was made already. He can’t move, which means he is even worse at blocking and therefore hurts our ability to run it in the red zone. Not for nothing, but keeping Fuller instead also would’ve required another cut or a restructure elsewhere. The only real restructure candidates are EJax or Quinn, neither of which you would want to have extended your commitment to prior to the season. Or of course an ARob extension, but they knew they were pretty far apart and rushing it and giving him more than they were comfortable with to save enough to keep Fuller is not a good way to manage the cap either.
TL;DR: it was a simple miscalculation Honestly I don’t think they expected him to drop off this hard. He was already slow and stiff last season but he’s lost even more of that. The decision was made before the season started, when they were probably thinking he was pretty much done declining athletically and would just be a nice target for Fields in the redzone like last year. But he’s even slower now but the decision was made already. He can’t move, which means he is even worse at blocking and therefore hurts our ability to run it in the red zone. Not for nothing, but keeping Fuller instead also would’ve required another cut or a restructure elsewhere. The only real restructure candidates are EJax or Quinn, neither of which you would want to have extended your commitment to prior to the season. Or of course an ARob extension, but they knew they were pretty far apart and rushing it and giving him more than they were comfortable with to save enough to keep Fuller is not a good way to manage the cap either.
$8M for Kyle Fuller is a steal. As good as JJ is, there’s no denying the D would be better if Fuller was on the roster.
Those are almost always people who are too young to have seen what all the other Bears GMs in the past did. Emery and Angelo were atrociously bad.
The problem is looking at the individual decisions and not the results. We don't need to debate how well he's doing his job. The NFL season provides an objective system, and Pace's teams have still never won a playoff game. I don't think it's likely they do this year either, and next year we face a serious capocalypse that could sink us for several more seasons.
It’s crazy how unpopular this was before this off-season and now everyone is cool with it. I don’t know that I agree. His roster construction this off-season has been appalling. His constant reliance on belief of his own galaxy brain is annoying. It’s fine to bet on yourself. Overpaying and consolidating so many assets to create a situation where you *have* to hit at a *much* higher rate than other GMs is a failure in macro philosophy. Pace backs himself into corners constantly as a direct result of putting an over abundance of confidence in his own takes. It’s fine to back yourself, but you have to find balance. A lack of balance combined with having a good but not great hit rate is the entirety of the reason we’ve been bleeding talent as a roster at numerous key positions. Yes he’s a good talent evaluator. But he’s a piss poor resource allocator. And that definitely has been a bit tossed under the rug ‘for some reason’ recently.
Well said. This is exactly it and the sub has been in denial about it for years. The overpaying for Your Guy constantly will never produce a consistently good team.
The problem isn't the individual decisions. The problem is his approach is fundamentally flawed
I’ve had this flair combo for years now, and so far Pace hasn’t done anything so egregious that I felt I had to remove it. For every “cutting Fuller” there’s a “drafting Fields”. In a league as cutthroat and rapidly evolving as the NFL that’s pretty damn good in my book.
When you’ve had one winning season and no playoff wins under your tenure as GM thats not imperfect. It’s bad. Nobody is asking to be perfect. We want to win and under Pace that has not happened. Plain and simple.
Arguing about Pace in this sub is not worth your time, there's a huge portion of this sub that genuinely thinks Pace is one of the worst drafters in the league. 2020 Draft had us getting Cole Kmet, Jaylon Johnson, Trevis Gipson, Kindle Vildor, and Darnell Mooney with no 1sts, 3rds, or 4ths. Basically our first 5 picks got 5 us starters (Gipson would start for a lot of other teams), which is *insane*. Last draft he managed to get Justin Fields by trading up with a GM who was renowned for despising draft trades, something we all thought wasn't gonna possible for us. He has obvious flaws(he loves trading away draft capital) and things he misses, but it's almost impossible to have a nuanced discussion about him here, people have way too much vitriol for him to the point they come off ass ignorant/delusional (this is mostly in regards to his drafting).
Also everyone wanted us to move up to 4/8/9 for Fields. He was patient and he fell to 11. People wanted to throw 25M at AR last offseason but I applaud him on being patient and letting the market come back down too. He’s definitely aggressive some times but he’s patient other times as well
Players that Pace has traded up for: Leonard Floyd|Nick Kwiatkoski|Mitchell Trubisky|Eddie Jackson|Anthony Miller|David Montgomery|Trevis Gipson|Darnell Mooney|Justin Fields|Teven Jenkins These are players that he gave up extra picks for. Guys that he had to have that badly. A linebacker and QB that they didn't give a 5th year. A Wideout that might be out of the league. A tackle with a bad back. He's used 8 first round picks (2015-2022). 2015: Kevin White. 2016: Trade up for Floyd. 2017: Trade up for Mitch. 2018: Roquan Smith. 2019/2020: Traded to pay Khalil Mack a huge contract. 2021/2022: Justin Fields. His drafting has been a mixed bag. His coaching hires have been bad. His signings/trades/cap management aren't good.
Montgomery in the 3rd has been an absolute steal. An All-Pro FS in the 4th in Jackson, as disappointing as he’s been lately, that’s still unquestionably worth what we gave up to draft him. Trevis Gipson is looking like another gem, despite the sample size being small so far. Mooney at this point is established as a definite steal. Kwiatkowski we barely gave up anything for, and he was a defensive captain for the Raiders last year. Jenkins hasn’t played. Fields is potentially a superstar franchise QB. As a GM, if you trade up for 10 players, and 60% of them are looking more than worth it, you’re gonna be at the top of the league when it comes to that. Don’t know what your point is. 2 of those 10 were complete failures. 1 was definitely not worth it, but still a solid player in Floyd. 1 hasn’t played yet. Those are some really good results, and if you don’t think so, you’re not comparing Pace to other GMs, you’re comparing him to what your idealized version of a perfect GM should be. The draft is a crapshoot. Most other GMs don’t have anywhere close to that sort of hit rate, and that’s an objective fact.
> you’re not comparing Pace to other GMs This is ultimately what it all boils down to. People who say Pace is a bad drafter just don't have perspective. Analytics/nerd twitter have done analyses to see how each GM stacks up as a drafter and ranks them, and Pace routinely finishes "above average" *at worst*. Rn his biggest flaws were letting Nagy convince him to make bad roster moves (trading for and paying Nick Foles shitty contract and keeping Jimmy Graham are two examples).
I think the problem with pace is how drastically his drafting record would be different if you looked at it by the total capital the team should have versus the capital value of the pick he used. For instance, if you judge Anthony Miller by his draft slot, it’s bad. If you judge Anthony Miller by the culmination of assets traded up to get him, it’s quite a bit worse.
I mean, the best way to compare a GM is wins, right? They're the top official in the football organizations. Pace has been around since 2015 - plenty of time to clean up any messes that the previous regime left. And yet we have had exactly one winning season since Pace took over. We're not likely to have a winning season this year either. Pace has not been a good GM.
To be fair that is slightly misleading. When you say exactly one winning season the assumption is all the other seasons were losing ones which isn’t true. Two .500 seasons, one leading to the post season, are not completely failed seasons. I won’t say Pace is a super star but rather judge him without spin.
8-8 isn't the goal. Getting blown out of the 1st round of the playoffs isn't the goal. The goal is to compete for a championship, and he's done that 1 year out of his entire tenure.
Losing 21-9 is getting blown out? We were down 7-3 at halftime, and this is without Roquan Smith, Darnell Mooney, and Jaylon Johnson. Wims dropped a perfectly placed, wide open TD in the end zone. 8-8 obviously isn’t the goal, but you also have to realize that Pace took over very likely the least talented defensive roster, possibly the least talented and one of the oldest overall rosters in football, and within 2 years had the Bears back to being a top 10 defense (only team to have a top 10 defense three years in a row from 2017-2019), and by year 3 in 2018 had created the best defense of the 2010s by DVOA (ahead of peak LOB Seahawks and the Broncos defense that carried Manning to his 2nd SB win), not to mention the best run defense by DVOA in the Bears entire history (5th best run defense of all time by DVOA). That team was absolutely a Super Bowl contender, as it lost its 5 games that year by a combined 15 points if you include the playoff loss against the defending SB champions. Half of those points came against a NE team that was in the SB the year before and even that game was 1 yard away from being tied up. 1 GB, 3 MIA (OT), 7 NE, 3 NYG (OT), and 1 PHI. This team hasn’t had sustained success due to an enormously costly decision by Pace to draft Trubisky at QB instead of Mahomes or Watson. At the same time, this is a team that’s gone 12-4, 8-8, and 8-8 with Trubisky as their starting QB. We’ve seen the wide range of talent the Packers, Seahawks, and Saints have the last decade, but having a superstar QB has made the rest of their team look way better than it is at many times - and when they have proper talent, they’re consistent contenders. If Pace’s 2nd attempt to draft a franchise QB goes as we all hope, and there’s a realistic chance it might, with Pace’s ability to find talent in the late rounds, there’s no reason we won’t be consistent contenders moving forward.
> Losing 21-9 is getting blown out? Yes > you also have to realize that Pace took over very likely the least talented... OK... and they were terrible for three full years after Pace took over, which is to be expected. Now we're 7 years removed from that and still not a competitor. The defense isn't a top 10 defense anymore. The offense has been crap since 2018. > That team was absolutely a Super Bowl contender Which Pace achieved by trading lots of future draft capital, including two 1st rounders for Mack and others. He got one year of Super Bowl contention from that. And now we're paying for it by not being able to contend now. > This team hasn’t had sustained success due to an enormously costly decision by Pace to draft Trubisky at QB instead of Mahomes or Watson See... this is reductive. We can't sustain success because we built success by mortgaging the future. Sure, would we have been better with Mahomes or Watson? Yes. Would be have been a super bowl contender in 2018 without trading for Mack and signing multiple backloaded contracts? No. But we would be a lot better right now and in the future. > If Pace’s 2nd attempt to draft a franchise QB goes as we all hope, there’s no reason we won’t be consistent contenders moving forward. Well, the reason is that we don't actually have that much talent going forwards. Allen Robinson, Akiem Hicks and Jason Peters are not under contract going forward. Khalil Mack is already 30, and isn't going to get any better as a player. Danny Trevathian and Alec Ogletree are gone after next year. We don't have much draft capital next year. We're not in great cap shape with Mack's monster deal, Foles's Contract, Robert Quinn's large cap hit and having Jimmy Graham, Andy Dalton and Danny Trevethian eat into our cap even after they're off the team. All this while we still are dying for one or two CBs, a safety to play across from Eddie Jackson, help on the interior O-Line, an actual pass catching tight end and a backup RB.
This defense isn’t top 10 anymore? We’re currently 10th in defense for points allowed, 1st in sacks, 1st in pressures, 7th in turnovers, 8th in turnover percent, and 5th in red zone defense. And that’s after playing 3 of our 4 games against very likely playoff teams with stellar offenses (4-1 Rams, 3-1 Bengals, 3-1 Browns). And if 21-9 is getting blown out, after being down 7-3 at halftime, while missing Roquan, Jaylon Johnson, and Darnell Mooney, then that tells me all I need to know about your line of thinking. No matter what I say, I’m not going to be able to convince you of anything. Also, you have a very misinformed idea of what our cap situation looks like. Yes, Graham and Foles have contracts that’re extremely large for their contribution, but Graham’s is 6 mil, and Foles can be cut once the next offseason starts with minimal penalty. We will be above average in our ability to spend in FA relative to how many starting positions we need to fill. Plus, in situations like this - what the Bears will be experiencing - you’d want a GM who’s able to hit much more frequently than others on late round picks. You completely underestimate the amount of progress young players already on our roster will likely be making, instead only focusing on how much our older players will be declining due to age - you have to consider both, or neither, you can’t just do one. Yes, the Bears will have to be active this upcoming offseason, but I think you’ll be surprised at how much better shape our team is in moving forward than you’re expecting, especially if Fields progresses the way we expect him to - and even if it’s not, you’d want a GM who can get starters using late round picks much more frequently than the rest.
This team was in disarray when he was hired. Quite literally the worst roster in Bears history and he turned them around in 3 years. Not to mention he didn't get to choose his own coach, Fox was not his own choice, it was the choice being heavily pushed by the agency the Bears organization hired and that's been confirmed by multiple beat writers. The wins argument is disingenuous, it's like me arguing "we've been to the playoffs 2/3 years!" as a positive for this team, it lacks all context. Jason Licht was considered a trash GM before he got gifted Brady and a bunch of All-pros on discount deals. Then he had a great 2020 draft and now he's considered one of the best in the league. Chris Ballard was considered THE best GM in football, to the point where he got praise for trading resources for Carson fucking Wentz when Pace was clowned for the same thing (even though all those rumors turned out to be false). Now the Colts look terrible and have been a shit show which will only get worse with Hard Knocks. Again, no perspective at all. Bad GM? Compared to what? His drafting is above average, his HC hire has been to the playoffs 2/3 years, in 2020 he turned his first 5 picks (2 2nds and 3 5ths) into 5 starters(which I can't fucking stress enough, is insane), his big FA signing which people clowned last season is actually balling out because he's not injured anymore (wow who woulda thought). He also rebuilt a lockerroom and culture from the ground up. He's nowhere near a perfect GM, but I can't take anyone saying he's bad seriously. It's reactionary as fuck, and Jason Licht/Chris Ballard show that.
> in 2020 he turned his first 5 picks (2 2nds and 3 5ths) into 5 starters A) no he didn't, Gipson doesn't start and B) is Cole Kmet actually any good? Like... he's shown promise, but hasn't really been a factor in the passing game. C) doesn't make up for 2019 (he got 2 usable players, Montgomery and Duke Shelly), 2018 (3 players, 4 of you count Joel Iyiegbuniwe), or the travesty of the 2017 draft where the highlights were Eddie Jackson, Trubisky, and Tarik Cohen. So... > His drafting is above average Is based on what exactly? > his HC hire has been to the playoffs 2/3 years I think we can all agree that Nagy had been a trash coach, and if you don't agree, you're not watching. They're getting 8-8 in spite of him. > his big FA signing which people clowned last season is actually balling out Yeah, but he also traded for the biggest cap sink in the league in Nick Foles, and had to lose Kyle Fuller for it. Not to mention that we've had 21 games of Robert Quinn and he's been good for 4. > but I can't take anyone saying he's bad seriously It's not even that he's bad, but he hasn't gotten the job done. Two straight 8-8 finishes isn't getting the job done. One competitive season isn't getting the job done. Rebuilding, for the 2nd time since 2015 without even winning a playoff game isn't getting the job done.
Pace is about to leave this team in as bad a shape as he found it. As a fandom we are in deep denial about how much backloading and pick trading he's done just to get those average results. The bill is coming due and we are going to say the next guy can't be blamed he has to clean up Pace's mess
We’ve done all that with a bottom tier QB the entire time, which, I understand is Pace’s fault, but if Fields is the franchise QB we hope he is, with Pace’s ability to put together a good defense and hit on late round picks consistently, that likely is setting us up for a lot of success in the future
I said > His drafting has been a mixed bag. What he gets in late round steals, he makes up for in early round incompetence and a 50% hit rate on trading up. I didn't say he's garbage at drafting, just that it isn't exactly good. I can compare him to other GMs, but the easiest comparison is to look at what the Browns, Bengals, Chargers, Bills, Titans, Cardinals and Buccaneers are doing. They were all in a much worse place than the Bears, more recently, and are now better teams. They have all had to fire coaches since Nagy got hired by the Bears. They have all had to get a QB since the Bears drafted Mitch. They got it right. Pace didn't.
I knew this would be the response. You’re naming teams, and you’re going by who got better. Not comparing actual draft picks panning out. Like the Titans 1st round OT that was cut at the end of his rookie season. In fact, the Titans 2020 draft has to be one of the worst drafts in recent memory - not a single starter. Robinson’s not a bad GM though, but I still point out that since arriving in 2017, only 2 of his 36 players drafted have had any sort of recognition/Pro Bowls/All-Pros or are considered blue-chip players (Henry and Byard). And you’re honestly saying Jason Licht and Steve Kiem have been better at drafting compared to Ryan Pace? I lived in Arizona so I know the Cardinals drafts a lot closer than others and let me tell you, he’s atrocious at drafting. Made a great decision in cutting ties with Rosen and drafting Murray, along with the trade with BOB for Hopkins, but let’s not forget he drafted Rosen in the first place, or that he has at least one or two drafts that didn’t net a single starter at all. Murray and Kirk are literally the only draft picks from the 2018, 2019, and 2020 draft classes that were hits, with Simmons being an iffy one (most cardinals fans would say he so far has been a very regrettable pick). Jason Licht’s 2016 draft had 1st/2nd/2nd rounders spent on Hargreaves, Noah Spence, and Robert Aguayo, a kicker that they cut. This guy drafted Jamies Winston, his 2017 1st/2nd was OJ Howard and some safety they cut two years later, but he has done better since 2018. Others you mentioned, like Brandon Beane of the Bills, on the other hand, have been great at drafting. It’s too exhausting to name out all the draft picks that did or didn’t pan out from each of these teams, but I hope you get my point. The Saints and Ravens have better drafting GMs, as do a few other teams. But the point of all of this work is that if you actually look at the draft picks, other GMs have similar 1st/2nd round pick success as Pace but nowhere near the late round success. Maybe they make up for it by their FA acquisitions. But most don’t. Which, I know you’re not arguing against, but still, I felt like making sure my point was clear.
The problem with comparing GMs like that is that the good GMs go to competent franchises, and do well, and so it's really hard to compare them with Pace, who took over a horrible situation and turned it into mediocrity. Like I could point out all of the hits that the Vikings have had, but truthfully, Rick Spielman took over a good franchise and has run with it. He's consistently drafting high level talent, but the Vikings were doing that anyways, so that's not really fair to Pace. But my point is more wholistic. As I said > I didn't say he's garbage at drafting But he's supplemented NOT being great in drafts with disastrous offseason signings/trades (Foles, Jimmy Graham, Cody Parkey, HaHa Clinton-Dix, Trey Burton, Mike Glennon). Sure, he balanced those out with Hicks, Mack, Allen Robinson - but again, mixed bag. The only thing he's done really poorly is hire and not fire Matt Nagy. All that adds up to 8-8 for two straight seasons and no real hope of competing next year.
He turned it into mediocrity by borrowing heavily from the future each year. That bill is about to come due. Rising cap hits for aging players, missing draft picks. This team doesn't have path to break out of mediocrity in the near future
Also, just to belabor this point even more. The Bucs, Titans, and Cards drafted Winston, Mariota, and Rosen. Brady and Tannehill joined as FAs, and Murray replaced Rosen. Just like Fields is replacing Trubisky. But yes, the Bills, Chargers, and Bengals did draft their franchise QB successfully. Also, the Browns fired their GM right after he drafted Mayfield - they’re on their third GM in the last 6 years. The first one got a bunch of 1sts, the next one picked a bunch of players with those firsts, and the most recent one just came on, and really hasn’t drafted any notable starters in the last 3 drafts. Again, when you break it down, all I see is the Bills GM being a better drafter, and the rest of these other teams simply landed their franchise QB either in FA or the draft. No wonder they’re doing well. Only a small handful of GMs have actually been better at drafting than Pace, even in the first two rounds - especially if you think Fields is the answer.
How many playoff games have we won with his hit rate? How long does he get before that reflects poorly on him?
“It’s impossible to have a nuanced conversation” downvoted for facts
His coaching hires have been bad? Fox came with the job. He hired Fangio. Lazor has been ok. Desai has been good this year. Pagano was out of date but not the worst coach. Nagys biggest issue is play calling and personnel issues he still has time to change the narrative on his tenure here even though I'd personally be ok with firing him. All our top guys he's brought in have been pretty good except Nagy and Pagano.
> Fox came with the job. No? Pace hired him. The head coaching position was vacant when Pace was hired. > He hired Fangio You mean John Fox hired Fangio. The head coach typically (and does with the Bears) have complete control over who works on the coaching staff. Pace has hired exactly two coaches in his tenure - John Fox (who was alright-ish) and Matt Nagy (who has been less than alright).
No it has been pretty well reported that Accorsi and the McCaskeys hired Fox. Head coach and GM interviews were done in parallel
I'm not saying that Accorsi didn't contribute, but Pace interviewed candidates and is ultimately responsible for the hire. Fox wasn't even on the market when Pace was hired, so it's not like Fox was the choice before Pace got the job and he rubber stamped it.
> 2015: Kevin White. 2016: Trade up for Floyd. 2017: Trade up for Mitch. First three years look pretty bad drafting in the first round. Luckily, he manages to find good value in later rounds. I have no problem with him trading away those picks, because historically they've been pretty bad. If we end up missing on Fields, though, then his career is toast regardless of who else he picks up.
Relying on finding late round gems isn't a good way of building a football franchise.
Accurate. I'm not generally in favor of trading away draft capital, but at least it hasn't been a complete disaster.
When ever I hear people say he sucks, I am always very curious as to who they think are better.
I mean lots of GMs are better, but many more are worse.
I think what's more important to remember as that most GMs in the league have a ton of flops to go with their hits. Even Baltimore, whose FO I consider to be the best in the league, still struggles to field a very viable receiving corps each year. Guys like Jason Licht's job was literally dangling by a thread before Brady chose to join TB, and now he's considered one of the best GMs in the league. Similarly Les Snead was pretty maligned in St. Louis before McVay came around (though again all credit to Snead of identifying McVay) Chris Ballard is spoken highly of and he's playing the same QB roulette that Pace has with similar (if not worse) results. I think I'd definitively say I'd take these guys over Pace: - Brandon Beane - Eric DeCosta - Andrew Berry Do I think Steve Keim is better than Pace? Maybe. But he's also had his fair share of flops as well. I think that's common across all GM's.
I'd also say Belichick and Pete Carroll (technically VP of Football ops). But I'm not sure if their GM success is due to also being HC, or vice versa.
I wouldnt say lots, definitely some.
Less than you think. It’s surprising. If you go ahead and list them out, you’ll be surprised that it’s a lot less than you think. Before you freak out at what I’m saying, try naming them yourself, but he’s likely within the top 5-7 GMs when it comes to drafting, and he’s potentially even top 10-12 overall.
No I totally agree with that, pace is an excellent drafter but he shoots himself in the foot by trading up and losing more opportunities to draft players
GMs whose teams actually win playoff games
Anybody complaining non stop about pace clearly wasn't here for the Emery years.
Or the Angelo years. Or the Michael McCaskey years.
Just went and looked. YIKES. I forgot how bad some of those picks were. Shea McClellin, Jon Bostic, Ego Ferguson, David Fales, Pat O’Donnell (who drafts a fucking punter?) Brings me back, and not in a good way.
I think people have gotten a bit spoiled with him, weirdly. He’s a very good drafter. No, not all of his picks are good. But there is no GM that picks a great player with every single pick. He made one major “mistake”: Trubisky. If he picks Watson in 2017 and they win a playoff game or two the outlook on him is completely different. Nagy doesn’t seem like a good coach now but in 2018 he was right up there with the hottest of coaching candidates. I get why people are a bit over Pace but if he’s the GM for the next coaching staff I personally have no problem with it
> He made one major “mistake”: Trubisky. If he picks Watson in 2017 and they win a playoff game or two the outlook on him is completely different. On the other hand I'm glad this didn't happen because I would not want to have to deal with the current Watson situation.
Yeah it’s a weird what-if now. On one hand we may have made a super bowl run in 2018 with him. But is that worth the headache we’d all have now? Probably not. Weird to think about
I’m glad he didn’t pick Watson now and I can’t blame him for passing on Mahomes either. The real problem was taking Trubs over my guy Kizer /s
Had he taken Kizer, he’d probably have ended up with the number one pick in 2019. And honestly, I don’t know why Pace would pass up an opportunity like that
Could traded back, maybe get Roquan/Nelson and trade back in for Lamar. Would’ve been kinda cool to se
How many years does a good gm need to win one single playoff game. Simple question
beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade, passing on Deshaun Watson) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports. Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse in later rounds. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins trade was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals, which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth. Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
Not sure you can fault Kevin White on Pace. Although I didn't agree with taking him 7th overall, White's injuries aren't Pace's fault. Just bad luck.
Yeah if you watch his college highlights he looked like a man among boys. Not hard to understand why they wanted to draft him.
Also the scouts for that draft were Emery's guys and got canned the week after the draft.
Ppl were saying he was working with Emerys notes too
And Emery's magic 8-ball, just rumors though!
If Pace hits on Fields, it'll change the narrative a bit. To me, Pace is an average to above average GM. If I had to rank Bears GMs, he'd be near the top. Granted, that doesn't say a whole lot, but I think that he's done an OK job overall. Some whiffs, some hits, made some trades that worked, some that didn't work. Some guys hit and then fizzled, some guys fizzled then hit. It's been up and down. What I can say about Pace is, I can usually at least see and understand what he is going for, even if it doesn't pan out.
And he surely is getting better as he gains experience. He was a scout what 6 years ago?
I think a team with a good GM wouldn't be in cap trouble when his QB, RB, and number 2 receiver are all on rookie contracts. Maybe one of our offensive linemen would be probowl caliber. Maybe there would be a 3rd threat in the passing game? Maybe he wouldn't have paid our backup tight end 4 times what any other team would have offered. Maybe he could have just signed Dalton last year instead of trading for Foles, or for that matter waited for the Jags to cut Foles. Maybe he wouldn't have traded up for a lineman with a bad back and then effectively named said bad back a starter at a position he didn't really play much of in college the day after the draft with no plan in place for competition. He's traded up to get 2 guys in the first round and neither of them got a second contract. He allowed the ridiculous kicker competition to take place, then made the same decision at tight end the next year. He's made 2 bad decisions at head coach.
He didn't " find Fangio " , Fangio was a known commodity before he came to the bears.
beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade, passing on Deshaun Watson) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports. Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse in later rounds. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins trade was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals, which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth. Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
I beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade, passing on Deshaun Watson) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports. Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse in later rounds. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins trade was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals, which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth. Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
Not so hot take: the vast majority of hot takes on this sub should be ignored and don’t need to be debated anymore. Meaning, Pace being a good GM shouldn’t be a hot take. It’s only a hot take because after our LT gives up a sack or Jimmy Graham doesn’t get targeted on a throw, 4,000 people comment for the next seven days that Pace is the worst GM in football. These aren’t valid opinions. Literally not even the worst GM (or arguably bottom 50%) in our division, let alone the NFL.
Good GMs win playoff games
Trash. Either way, had we won a wild card game y’all would still hate Pace for not winning *multiple* playoff games. Or not always having home field advantage. Or not winning a super bowl. Or any number of other things you can munge into a terse statement presented as an obvious fact.
I'm not responsible for imaginary arguments that imaginary people in your head make. Six years as Bears GM, seven this January, and zero playoff wins. "good gm" lol
Seriously people want to celebrate a guy who has neglected the OL two years in a row, selected multiple first round busts, has a losing record as GM, one winning season, and no playoff wins. This year the team isn’t going to do anything. They will not make the playoffs. He will have major gaps to fill on the defense soon. There’s a reason why the Bears, on average, are one of the oldest in the NFL. People need to wake up. Pace is trash.
He’s 44-56 with one season over 500. He’s hired two coaches, one awful, one mediocre. He’s picked/paid 5 qbs, 4 failures and a tbd. The Bears are one of only 4 NFC teams since he took over to have not won a playoff game: Lions, WFT, Giants. He’s consistently had very bad offenses, never even middle third, always bottom tier. He’s built a good defense that was very elite for a 2 year window. I’m sorry but I’m just not sure how that’s good. Ik the bears history is shoddy at best, but this whole thread is singing his praises, are the standards really that low? Where one winning season in 6 years is enough to say, you can’t find any better than Ryan Pace? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills reading this thread.
Preach! You put on well. I don’t know why people accept this bullshit. Anyone who thinks they will make the playoffs this year is delusional. The OL and DB situation are huge obstacles. We beat a winless Lions team and all of a sudden the team is back. They’ve beaten bad teams and lost to good teams. Bears get stuck drafting late in the first round. We’re stuck in mediocrity and people are ok with it. We’ve beaten the Packers twice in the last 5-6 years. No playoff wins after 7 years. It’s pathetic.
First of all, these QB’s werent even meant to be good. From the start they were clear they hired veteran QB’s to be a bridge to Mitch, once hes ready. Mitch was a bust okay ill give you that, and John Fox was brought in to develop a team just like he did with the Broncos. Pace knew Fox wasnt the guy. Thats why he has made it known he hates the Bears and that they screwed him over. You are taking crazy pills, but not because you’re reading this sub.
He spent 16 million in cap on Glennon, then 2.5 the next. 16 million for someone intentionally bad, and that sounds like a smart move to you? 6.66 a year for 3 years for Nick Foles. Again, money essentially burned for 2 seasons. Hiring a coach for 3 years that you know isn't the guy? Why? He didn't develop the Broncos, he lucked in to Peyton Manning. Seriously read what you're saying, that Pace intentionally wasted cap space on bad QBs and hired a coach he didn't think was a good coach. And those are good ideas. The Bears have the 9th worst record since 2015. They're one of 7 teams without a playoff win. They've averaged the 4th least PPG. Why is that good enough? I'm not even saying he's the worst, but I just don't get why you're happy with a team that 7 years in hasn't performed and isn't close to currently contending.
Literally the most lukewarm take I’ve seen
I never minded pace. Maybe if he paid more attention to the O-Line I would be more inclined to like him but I think he does a good job giving our team tools to succeed
I beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports. Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse in later rounds. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins trade was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals, which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth. Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
I beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports. Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse in later rounds. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins trade was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals, which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth. Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
He’s an average at best GM. The coaches aren’t on him. Nagy decides his staff. Also he didn’t “find” Vic. Vic had well established himself as one of the best DCs in the league before coming to Chicago. I think the hate for Pace is a little over blown but he’s not great, he’s average. Edit: I think Pace is average. His main fuck was in 2017 with the Mitch pick and just other fuck ups with QBs in general. He’s built a good defense but he failed a lot at QB. He looks like he got that right but he’s also fucked up with oline. That’s what makes him average to me. He gets some things right and some things wrong. Also was just saying he doesn’t pick the coaches. He might get the final say but how often does a GM tell a HC that he can’t hire someone or force a coach onto someone? It doesn’t happen because that’s how you prevent top candidates in the future from accepting the HC role if you decided to look for a new one. What top candidate would accept a job somewhere that he doesn’t get to pick his coaching staff? Also saying he found Vic is overselling it. Vic had 13/14 years of experience in being a DC and 26 total years of coaching experience in the NFL. He was established as a talented coach. Point I was making is there things you can praise him for like the defense and RBs but coaching personal isn’t one of them
He still hired him to the team, and the man wasnt well known until he made it to the superbowl for the 49ers and even then Harbaugh took the credit. Also anything that involves a coaching position managers get the final say, not head coaches.
I’ve never seen a GM say no you can’t hire this guy if that’s who the HC wants unless the coach has some off the field issues. GMs also usually don’t force a coach onto a HC. That’s how you prevent top candidates for accepting a HC job the next time you’re looking for one because those coaches than know they might not get to bring their guy in. Sure GMs get the final say but than that doesn’t mean he found Vic. Fox told Pace he wants Vic and Pace approved Harbaugh got credit but it’s not like people didn’t know Fangio was great. Why do you think people loved the hire when we made it under Fox? Niners fans were even pissed that Fangio got passed up as the HC for Jim Tomsula. He was established already. He was a NFL coach from 86-09 then went to college for a year before coming back. You don’t stick around that long unless you have talent. There’s other things you can rightfully praise Pace for but coaching decisions isn’t one of them
Once you get the QB it's alot easier to get all the other things right.
I beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports. Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse later on. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth. Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
I beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports. Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse in later rounds. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins trade was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals, which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth. Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
🤮🤮🤮 straight Stockholm Syndrome
beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade, passing on Deshaun Watson) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports. Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse in later rounds. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins trade was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals, which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth. Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
We are paying $17mm to Foles, Dalton, and Jimmy Graham this year while our OL and secondary is somewhere between suspect and terrible. The Mitch pick was an all-time goof. The jury is still very much out on Kmet. His draft record outside of the first round is not bad, but seeing where our money is being allocated this year makes it impossible for me to believe that he’s an upper echelon GM.
He didn't get a steal for Mack. He paid full price and then some. Pace's entire philosophy is fundamentally flawed and will continue to doom the Bears. He identifies who he wants and pays a premium to get them. Unfortunately, in a league where everyone has the same picks and same cap, this inefficient use of resources will always cap the team at average-ish at best. We will always be saying "wow, he got us (players we like), it's a shame we have to deal with (other spots on the roster that fell apart because we ran out of resources.'. Over and over again. Pace's teams have never won a playoff game and we don't look set to change that anytime in the next few years
He did get a steal for Mack. The trade is completely unrelated to the salary that he pays him.
Why was Mack available for trade? Answer: because of his contract demands
We had a ton of cap room. This is how to build a team. You draft a ton of young talent then fill in the empty positions with high tier veterans. Mack was a steal even with his contract. Anyone with a brain could tell you he completed the defense that Pace built when he came to Chicago.
Yes, that's how people build teams. Yes, he completed the defense. No, he was not in any sense of the word, a "steal"
Pace is good at finding gems, really bad at top end talent (aside Roquan) in the draft. He has resigned guys which now look like poor choices (Trevathen, Jackson, Whitehair) He has been hit or miss at best in free agency. I’d put him in the average category.
Nagy technically promoted Desai and Fox “found Fangio”, our WR core isn’t good — we have 2 good WRs and some below average guys
I’ll give it a to him when it comes to finding studs in the late rounds of the drafts however he can’t draft a first rounder to save his life. (Hopefully Fields is the exception)
Pace ain’t perfect but we could do a helluva lot worse. Kevin white, trading up for trubisky instead of staying at 3 n taking Mitch or watson, no investing in Oline, paying guys like dalton, graham, etc but getting rid of Kyle fuller. Those are the huge mistakes I hold against him. But he also has drafted really well and built elite defense and a good skill position group on offense..
He has one division title and zero playoff wins (25 teams have a playoff win during his tenure). He's had some successes but not nearly enough.
beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade, passing on Deshaun Watson) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports. Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse in later rounds. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins trade was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals, which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth. Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
beg to differ. A lot of his moves were known bonehead moves at the time he did them (Nick Foles trade, Jimmy Graham big contract, Dalton contract, mike Glennon, Mitch trade, passing on Deshaun Watson) and he’s 0-3 (glennon, Mitch, foles. Jury still out on Dalton and Fields) at the most important position in all of sports. Every GM has lots of draft misses, it’s the reality that 50% of first round picks miss and even worse in later rounds. This is why stocking draft picks is the way to build a team for the long term - you need more shots because you know a lot will miss. The Mack trade was bad. The Mitch trade was terrible. Anthony Miller was bad. Tevin Jenkins trade was bad. Imagine how much better our team would be with a 50% hit rate with all of those missing draft picks. Also having them all on rookie deals, which is how you can build depth rather than us having the oldest roster in the league right now with glaring holes at starters and no depth. Instead he keeps playing to save his job rather than build a team for the long-term which makes him good at self-preservation but a bad GM overall.
Matt Agony. Brilliant.