It’s unlikely the Bears will show a video tribute to former general manager Ryan Pace upon his return to Soldier Field on Sunday as the Falcons’ director of player personnel.
Pace had one winning season in seven years with the Bears, and even the glorious 12-4 season in 2018 is now known as much for its short shelf life and Cody Parkey’s double-doink field-goal miss in the playoffs as it is for all the Matt Nagy/“Santa’s Sleigh” fun and Vic Fangio-fueled defensive-touchdown frolic that preceded that most inglorious ending.
But let the record show: While Ryan Poles’ teardown of Pace’s roster was a clear rebuke of the personnel he inherited from his predecessor, Pace’s imprint remains on a Bears team that appears headed in the right direction with two games left in the season.
Only 19 players from Pace’s 53-man rosters were still with the team before the Bears played a game with Poles as GM in 2022. But nearly two years later, 11 of those players still remain, including seven starters: quarterback Justin Fields, cornerback Jaylon Johnson, tight end Cole Kmet, safety Eddie Jackson, guard Teven Jenkins, running back Khalil Herbert and wide receiver Darnell Mooney, plus guard Cody Whitehair, kicker Cairo Santos, long snapper Patrick Scales and offensive lineman Larry Borom.
Kmet (four years, $50 million) and Santos (four years, $16 million) already have been signed to contract extensions. Johnson and Jenkins could be next. Herbert still looks like a keeper after a stagnant season marked by an injury. Jackson figures to return only at the Bears’ price, if at all. And Fields will be either the Bears’ biggest, most expensive foundation piece of all, or gone.
It’s so fitting that the quarterback is the most perplexing piece of the puzzle with Pace in town — and that he’s Pace’s quarterback at that. Like most NFL GMs, Pace had his share of hits and misses, albeit with more bad luck than good fortune. But it was the quarterback that did him in.
It was tough luck that wide receiver Kevin White — Pace’s first first-round draft pick, No. 7 overall in 2015 after the Raiders took Amari Cooper at No. 4 — was never truly healthy as a Bear. And one-time hits Tarik Cohen (injury) and Eddie Goldman (COVID-19/disinterest) faded too quickly. That happens to every GM over time.
But the 2017 quarterback draft stands out as an egregious miss that would doom any GM. Pace wasn’t the only one who had North Carolina’s Mitch Trubisky as the top quarterback on his draft board, ahead of Clemson’s Deshaun Watson, Texas Tech’s Patrick Mahomes and Notre Dame’s DeShone Kizer.
But after evaluating all the QBs in that class, Pace was so resolute that Trubisky stood out far ahead of the others that he traded up, from No. 3 to No. 2, to make sure he got his guy. For the record, Pace traded a third-round pick (No. 67), a fourth-round pick (No. 111) and a 2018 third-round pick (eventually No. 70) to move up to No. 2.
The Trubisky miss ultimately sealed Pace’s fate, but not before Pace made another bold move for a quarterback, trading up from No. 20 to No. 11 to take Fields out of Ohio State in 2021. It wasn’t quite the slam-dunk he needed, but it was a definite improvement in quarterback evaluation. Fields is, at worst, the second-best quarterback in the quarterback-heavy 2021 draft, maybe behind the Jaguars’ Trevor Lawrence (No. 1 overall), but definitely ahead of the Jets’ Zach Wilson (No. 2), the Cowboys’ Trey Lance (No. 3) and the Patriots’ Mac Jones (No. 15).
The Bears have a big decision to make on Fields, and having the No. 1 pick could make it an easy one. But while the Bears correctly moved on after the 2021 season, it’s still possible for Pace to have a meaningful stamp on the next Bears playoff team.
