Ryan Pace doesn’t have a lot of friends in the media these days. The Chicago Bears GM can’t count on much support from fans either. Despite six seasons in charge, his efforts have produced just one winning season. While the Bears did make the playoffs twice, they were 0-2 in those trips. It feels like the team is stuck in mediocrity, most of that thanks to one noteworthy blunder that everybody knows by now. Including former guard Kyle Long.
It’s an event covered so many times. Pace has the #3 pick in the draft. He’s going to take a quarterback. He surrendered three extra picks to move up to #2 and selects Mitch Trubisky out of North Carolina over the more proven Deshaun Watson of Clemson and Patrick Mahomes of Texas Tech. Four years later, Watson and Mahomes own the AFC, and Trubisky is set to become a free agent after a disappointing run in Chicago.
It is far and away the blackest mark on Pace’s track record.
One the Bears are still paying and will keep paying for unless they somehow stumble on a solution at quarterback. Enter Watson again. The 25-year old star has gotten into a nasty situation with Texans ownership. One with a lot of disrespect and hurt feelings. It’s gotten to a point where the QB has requested a trade. By all accounts the half the NFL figures to be in on that. Including the Bears.
Long seems to find that ironic and more than a little funny. During an interview with Adam Schein of CBS Sports, they were talking about the Watson situation. It was then the retired Bear made an interesting comment. One that sharp-eared listeners can probably tell was a not-so-subtle dig at Pace.
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Kyle Long clearly took particular delight in that comment
For those who haven’t studied up on what happened in the 2017 draft, here’s a quick refresher. Pace had two QBs at the top of his board. Trubisky was #1 and Mahomes was #2. Clearly, he didn’t think much of Watson. It’s not clear why. Apparently, it was so certain in Pace’s mind that he did not meet personally with the Clemson star at any point before the draft. Not once. As colossal a case of failing to do his due diligence as any GM could ever make.
This is why so many people couldn’t understand why George McCaskey and Bears ownership were so willing to let Pace stay. That blunder four years ago robbed the franchise of an extended Super Bowl window. If he couldn’t figure out what a good quarterback looks like back then, why should anybody believe he can get it right a second time? Kyle Long himself has made it clear that Pace and Nagy should probably be gone.
Yet here they are, holding the future of the organization in their hands.
It’s given fans a helpless feeling. They have a terrible sense of dread that Pace is going to once again mortgage the future to take a massive cut at the quarterback position. Be it on the trade market or in the draft. If he whiffs again? He’ll be fired next offseason, having let the Bears’ hopes and dreams lying dead on the side of the road.