Chicago Bears: Time For the Ryan Pace Report Card
By Erik Lambert
Chicago Bears GM Ryan Pace has done a nice job dodging the jabs of the media and most fans to this point largely thanks to what he inherited.
This team was a hollowed out wreck when he took over in 2015. It was old, dispirited and most of their biggest stars had left town or retired. Mismanagement by predecessors Jerry Angelo and Phil Emery made it clear that a significant rebuild would have to take place. All while at the same time he had to change the culture. Nobody likes that dreaded word but facts were facts.
This meant the next couple years might be difficult for Bears fans as the roster was overturned from top to bottom. Every single position group saw huge changes. Unfortunately this led to a lot of a mistake-prone football as is customary with such rapid purges. Now after a significant wait it feels like a good time to assess the job Pace has done to this point. Let’s start with the basics.
Age: 40
Year in charge: 3rd
Present record: 10-27
Playoff trips: 0
The general belief in football is that progress of any sort should be see by the third year of a certain regime. To this point it’s hard to say Pace has accomplished much of anything. His team hasn’t even sniffed the playoffs or even third place in the division. They haven’t won back-to-back games since 2015. With 11 games left this season there is still time for progress to show, but that aura of invincibility seems to be fading for the young GM. So it’s time to explore what he’s done well, and not so well.