It’s been about 10 months since the Chicago Bears parted ways with general manager Ryan Pace after a disastrous 2021 season. Hired by the Bears in in 2015, Pace took the team to its first division title three years later by building a staunch defense and pushing his chips in on quarterback Mitchell Trubisky and head coach Matt Nagy.
The success didn’t last however and the talented roster became old and expensive quickly while the quarterback position suffered. Despite mounting pressure from the outside to make a change following an uneven 2020 season, the Bears opted to stick with Pace and Nagy for one more season.
That faith led to a massive trade during the 2021 NFL draft with the Bears moving up to select Justin Fields as their new future franchise quarterback. Pace would only get one season with him, however, as he was fired following Fields’ rookie year.
Now with the Atlanta Falcons as a senior executive, Pace will meet back up with the Bears when the two teams face off this weekend. His former team will look much different than it did even a year ago with many of his players already gone. The bad contracts that resulted in millions of dollars in dead cap space are still there, however, as the Bears were forced to deal with the decisions Pace made to extend his win-now window.
Knowing now that Pace couldn’t turn things around in 2021, one can argue he should have been let go earlier and the Bears’ rebuild would be two years down the road instead of one. But Bears fans should be thanking their lucky stars that didn’t happen and Pace was allowed to hang on for one more season. He may have given the Bears their best quarterback in team history.
The trade for Justin Fields
The biggest and most obvious reason why keeping Pace an extra year was worth it is the Fields pick. Pace was notorious for his aggressive drafting and going “all in” on certain players or positions. He also liked to overcorrect his mistakes. So when things didn’t work out with Trubisky, Poles doubled down by signing Andy Dalton and finding a way to land Fields in the draft.
Had the Bears opted to fire Pace following the 2020 season, there’s very little chance a new general manager makes a bold move like that in their first NFL draft. They’re relying on scouts who were holdovers from the previous regime and they don’t want to sell the farm right off the bat to acquire one player. Since the Bears had the No. 19 pick then, there’s little chance they land Fields without that massive trade. Even having a shot at Mac Jones, who went at No. 15 would have been unlikely. If they still wanted to look at quarterbacks, their best bets would have likely been Davis Mills, Kyle Trask, or Kellen Mond. Not great options.
Otherwise, the Bears might have punted and turned to a much weaker quarterback class in 2022, pinning their hopes on someone like Kenny Pickett or Malik Willis, neither of which come close to the upside of Fields. Perhaps they mortgage the future and tie millions of dollars to an uncertain situation by trading for Deshaun Watson. Or even wait yet another year and try their luck with the 2023 quarterback class. Either way, the position doesn’t get solved yet and the Bears are potentially still looking for their guy, mired in quarterback hell.
Fields was hamstrung by Nagy’s inability to develop him during his rookie season and wound up being somewhat responsible for Pace’s firing. The two were a package deal though and, with Nagy failing, there was no way Pace was going to escape scrutiny. Now that he’s in a proper offense, his potential is finally being realized and the decision to trade up looks like one of the better draft trades in recent memory. It likely doesn’t happen though if Pace gets let go earlier in the offseason.
Team-friendly deals in free agency
Besides mortgaging future draft picks, one of Pace’s calling cards has been signing and extending aging free agents to multi-year deals and/or restructuring those deals to push millions of dollars of dead money into the future to focus on winning now. It’s a big reason why the 2022 Bears under Poles needed to focus on eating that money to clear up their cap for the future. But thankfully in 2021, Pace spared the Bears of big-money deals, though admittedly not for a lack of trying.
Most of the free agents the Bears signed were inked to one-year deals and just a handful saw two-year contracts. Outside of a modest three-year extension to Mario Edwards Jr. and a questionable decision to keep Jimmy Graham on the team with his $10 million cap hit, none of the deals really broke the bank.
Those shorter and cheaper signings gave the Bears more flexibility than they might have had otherwise. This isn’t necessarily a major benefit to Pace sticking around, but things could have been much worse given his spending history and the Bears would be looking at ways to offload a struggling player or two who makes a lot of money. Imagine the situation the Bears would be in had they signed wide receiver Kenny Golladay had he not gone to the Giants in 2021.
Even if the Bears had gotten rid of Pace following 2020, most of the dead cap would have still needed to be dealt with one way or another. Keeping him another season didn’t have nearly as much impact in that department as one would think.
What do Bears fans think?
Following the 2020 season where the Bears backed into a playoff spot, many fans still saw the writing on the wall saying Pace and Nagy needed to be fired. Bears ownership thought differently and gave them one more shot to get it together, to the dismay of the majority of the fanbase. Now, nearly two years later, do Bears fans think it was the right move?
Nearly 2,000 Bears fans voted in a Twitter poll this week simply asking if the team would be in a better or worse spot now if Pace had been let go following the 2020 season.
Being that it's Bears-Falcons this week, I have a piece coming out later on but I want to know from the people first.
Would the Bears be in a better or worse spot now if they had fired Ryan Pace after the 2020 season instead of the 2021 season?
— Brendan Sugrue (@BrendanSugrue) November 15, 2022
Nearly 48 percent of fans admitted the team would be worse off if Pace was fired earlier. But 36 percent believe things would have turned out better, and 16 percent believed the timing of the firing would have made no difference.
Here are a few responses for why fans voted the way they did.
I chose worse, but I cannot imagine that a rookie QB could have had a worse season than under Nagy, so it is possible the team could be better off this season than they currently are, but long-term, they needed the year to lower the pain of dumping all the salary.
— Joseph M Felicelli (@FelicelliJoe) November 15, 2022
Worse because I’m not sure anyone else would have moved up to draft Justin
— Betsy Tarr (@Betsypaige24) November 15, 2022
I will always appreciate Ryan Pace for trading up for Fields. I don’t think a new GM would’ve sacrificed future assets for a Qb trade up
— DaWindyCity Productions (@dwcprodz) November 15, 2022
I would chalk it up as JF1 being a Bear being a gift from the Football Gods more than I would credit Pace. Bears been in QB Hell for decades. Bears were overdue for some good fortune. Law of averages. 😄
— 💙🌊DaB34rs🌊💙 (@Bears34Girl) November 15, 2022
You have to give credit for Pace to move up and draft Fields. Other moves he made: 🤬
— Paulius (@Pauliuskase) November 15, 2022
If they fired Pace and drafted Fields and began the rebuild around him. Thing might be better no Andy Dalton ect.
— Eric Rogers (@ECRogers270) November 15, 2022
Fields was the best parting gift Pace could have gotten the Bears
Fields is by no means a finished product, but the young man is well on his way towards becoming the best quarterback in team history. Trading up to grab him in the 2021 NFL Draft was Pace’s parting gift to a franchise he almost brought back to relevancy, but fell short.
Pace had some big hits and wild misses during his tenure as Bears GM. His aggressive nature burned the team more than they helped it, both in free agency and in the draft. His last big move may have been his best one yet, though. It’s surprising to say, but keeping him on one extra year and allowing him to draft Fields may have been the best decision this franchise has made in years. Things have a way of working out like that.
