Chicago Bears: Time For the Ryan Pace Report Card

Negatives:

Takes way too many chances on players with injury backgrounds

Look when a team is rebuild the GM has to take some risks if he wants to get better faster. There are types of risks though and Pace has developed a bad habit of one in particular. Since 2015 he’s taken notable swings at names who brought questionable health backgrounds. Most of whom have lived up to it. Pernell McPhee has had multiple knee surgeries. Danny Trevathan suffered another major knee injury. Markus Wheaton has suffered four different injuries just this season. None of those men and others have managed to play a full season in Chicago yet.

Poor evaluator in free agency

To be fair Pace has said that building through free agency was never his goal. He uses it to plug certain roster holes and add depth, not look for top talent. Problem is most of his free agent venture have underachieved, sometimes spectacularly. Wheaton was already referenced. Quintin Demps did little before bowing out with injury. Mike Glennon was an $18 million train wreck. Dion Simms and Bobby Massie are average at best. To date only Akiem Hicks and Josh Sitton stand out as true hits.

Stuck by John Fox despite clear warning signs

At first the hiring of John Fox seemed obvious. He was a highly respected and experienced head coach who’d already turned around franchises like Carolina and Denver. His steady hand and ability to motivate should help restore the locker room culture. This at least he did. Problem is the 62-year old seems to have clearly lost his edge. His teams have developed two bad habits. One is suffering a huge amount of injuries and the other is an ongoing lack of discipline or awareness in close games every week. It was argued he should’ve been gone after last year but Pace stuck by him.

Lacks stomach for the bold move (outside the draft)

Look around the league and the best GMs often have certain things in common. A big one is the willingness to be bold at all times. That could involve an aggressive free agent signing (Bill Belichick), a big trade for a player (John Schneider) or firing a coach who isn’t doing their job right (John Elway). Pace has demonstrated none of those qualities. His bold moves have only come during the draft and even then they were rather limited. His trades up for Leonard Floyd and Mitch Trubisky, while aggressive were hardly blockbuster quality. It leads one to wonder if he’s a bit gun shy.