Chicago Bears: Ryan Pace has people believing again with big offseason

With turmoil swirling around the league, Ryan Pace has people believing in the Chicago Bears.

By now, Chicago Bears fans have likely become familiar with a man named Kent Sterling and his notion that the Indianapolis Colts had clearly a more desirable head-coaching location than the Bears coming into this offseason.

And when pressed by Bears fans about it, Sterling, like the champ he is, doubled, tripled and quadrupled down.

Wow, is that idea looking really foolish right about now or what?

With Josh McDaniels leaving the Colts at the altar yesterday to go back to the New England Patriots, Indianapolis is in shambles right now.

Instead of a press conference introducing his head coaching, Colts general manager Chris Ballard will now sit in front of people and address questions as to how this process failed.

Plus, Andrew Luck’s shoulder may never heal enough for him to play like Andrew Luck again. That essentially blasts the Colts’ biggest selling point right into the sun. Who knows? Maybe that was a reason McDaniels stood them up aside from him clearly wanting to take Bill Belichick’s place one day.

But all this comes back to one solid point for me: Ryan Pace is the biggest winner of this NFL offseason this far.

Yeah, I know free agency, his usual Achilles’ heel, hasn’t arrived nor has he drafted anyone yet. Those remain crucial factors in what happens with this team going forward.

However, can you argue that Pace clearly knows how to get people to buy into his vision? And that skill has seemingly revolutionized the Bears without them even taking the field in 2018 yet.

With his firing of John Fox, he finally seized full control of the Chicago Bears’ coaching search and football direction.

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He then used that power to persuade Kansas City Chiefs’ offensive coordinator Matt Nagy, one of the hottest coaching candidates on the market, to take over as head coach, selling his hand-picked quarterback Mitch Trubisky, young offensive weapons like Tarik Cohen and Adam Shaheen and a defense poised to become a top-10 unit.

Nagy, in turn, brought in what’s looking like an All-Star coaching staff, retaining Vic Fangio and then bringing in the likes of Mike Helfrich, Harry Hiestand and now Brad Childress to help mold his offensive talents.

Some of it was a stroke of good fortune, in that Nagy became available quickly after Kansas City’s first-round loss. But again, Pace showed conviction and a willingness to strike hard and fast at what he wanted. And despite some of the holes in the Bears’ roster, he continues to sell his vision for this franchise and get people to buy in.

I bet the Indianapolis Colts would certainly love to have a guy who could do that right now. Not to say that Ballard is a bad GM, but again, look at the outcomes. Pace has people believing that the Bears are on the way up. Ballard doesn’t.

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Now, Pace has to seal the deal with a solid free agent class and another big draft that grabs at least one defensive difference-maker and NFL-ready pass catcher each. Without that, the Bears will improve, perhaps, but won’t be ready to compete for another year.

But as of right now, Pace has made the Chicago Bears an exciting place for fans, players and potential hires. And he did in the course of about a week, too.

Bravo.