The Chicago Bears wanted to get as far away from the Phil Emery experience as they could back in 2015. It wasn’t a huge surprise. The former GM had ridden a once competitive team into the ground with a series of bad decisions. Most notably in the draft with his higher picks and his baffling decision to give Jay Cutler $126 million. Thus a team that went 10-6 his first year bottomed out at 5-11 two years later and he was fired. This is what led to the hiring of Ryan Pace.
George McCaskey and the Bears ownership wanted something new. Something different. They didn’t want another guy like Emery with an old school scouting background and deep roots with the team. They wanted a fresh start. That is why the young, energetic New Orleans Saints director of player personnel was chosen. They had no way of knowing that he would end up turning into just another version of what they left behind.
Don’t believe it? Let’s run through a few things to help illustrate the harsh reality.
Ryan Pace and Phil Emery share a lot in common
Whiffed on their first-ever draft picks
It may sound crazy, but the best way to determine whether a general manager will be a success or not in his career is through their first ever draft choice. Howie Roseman chose Brandon Graham in Philadelphia. Kevin Colbert chose Plaxico Burress in Pittsburgh. John Schneider chose Russell Okung in Seattle. The results are fairly consistent. So it wasn’t the best sign when Phil Emery chose Shea McClellin 19th overall in 2012. Still ranked as one of the worst draft picks in Bears history.
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In hindsight, people should’ve been concerned about Pace too. His first choice to commemorate a new era was Kevin White. A relatively inexperienced receiver out of West Virginia. A man who just weeks after being drafted ended up on Injured Reserve with a fractured leg. White would never play a full season in four years for Chicago. This would set the tone for Pace’s tenure as every subsequent 1st round pick has encountered problems in various forms. Just like Emery’s.
Failure to find actual offensive geniuses
The entire goal for both Emery and Pace was to join the 21st century of the NFL. That meant building a franchise around a productive offense. The easiest way to do this historically is having a head coach in charge with an offensive background. It is for this reason that Emery fired Lovie Smith in January of 2013. Sadly his choice for a replacement was Marc Trestman, an NFL castoff who’d had some success in the CFL. After some initial success in his first year with his offense ranking 2nd in scoring, things fell apart in 2014 as his clear lack of leadership led to a fractured locker room.
Pace’s attempt has proven to have similar results, if for opposite reasons. Matt Nagy was his version of the offensive wizard. An understudy of the great Andy Reid in Kansas City. However, he only had half a season of play calling experience. Like Trestman, he had early success with the 9th-best scoring offense in 2018. However, that has since crashed to earth in 2019, ranking a dismal 30th with Nagy being exposed as an inconsistent and ineffective play caller. Same song, different verse.
Misguided moves at quarterback
If anything defines a GM in this era, it’s what they do at the quarterback position. The NFL is a QB-centric league more than ever before. Either a team has one and tends to win a lot or they don’t. Emery was basically stuck with Jay Cutler by the start of 2012. Still, he had two years of valuable time to evaluate the veteran quarterback as he began to churn the roster in his own vision. By the end of 2013, it looked like he had a fairly definitive answer. Cutler had spent a good chunk of that year hurt while backup Josh McCown outperformed him in every notable category.
How did Emery respond to this? He gave Cutler a seven-year deal worth $126 million.
It’s incredible how similar things set up for Pace. He took was stuck with Cutler when he first arrived, this due more to that contract than actual good play. Like Emery, he got two solid seasons to evaluate before making a decision. This time he chose to make a change. The timing was perfect. The Bears had the #3 pick in the draft. If he wanted to go get a possible franchise guy, the options were there. Did he want national champion Deshaun Watson of Clemson or did he want stat machine Patrick Mahomes of Texas Tech? Turns out he went with Mitch Trubisky, a talented but raw passer with one year of starting experience out of North Carolina.
Now Pace has had more success than Emery in certain areas. He’s much better in the later rounds of the draft and in free agency too. Still, those aren’t enough to overshadow the two most important moves a GM can ever make. The hiring of a head coach and the choosing of a quarterback. Not to mention the persistent failure at finding good players in the 1st round.
It turns out the Bears’ desperate attempt to escape the Emery experience led them directly into its sequel.
