Chicago Bears: Ryan Pace recognized by his peers
The Chicago Bears general manager is finally getting some overdue recognition.
On Sunday afternoon, Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Pace received a formal acknowledgment of the outstanding job he has done with the team. That’s because Pace was voted by his peers as the Sporting News Executive of the Year.
Pace received the award as part of a ceremony at the NFL Owners meeting in Arizona, which was attended by Virginia and George McCaskey, as well as head coach Matt Nagy.
While Pace was honored to receive the award, he would also likely be the first one to tell you that the real goal is winning the Super Bowl. So while the recognition is nice, it is not why he’s in the job.
However, the award is important if for no other reason then to start to reverse the ridiculous narrative out there (being advanced by some) that Pace is not a good general manager. There are a few, very vocal critics of Pace. In fact, if you didn’t know any better, you’d think there was some personal animus behind their schtick.
But the reality is Pace has turned proverbial lemons into lemonade. When he arrived, the team’s roster was old, overpaid, lacking depth, and full of malcontents. He also inherited a situation where his predecessor, Phil Emery, left the cupboard extremely bare.
As a result, Pace was forced to overpay for free agents, and he did just that in his first year. He also bombed with his signing of Mike Glennon, though the fact of the matter is that none of those bad free agent deals crippled the Bears’ plans for the future.
While Pace has sure missed on his fair share of draft picks (Kevin White obviously comes to mind), he has drafted so well in the middle to late rounds that he has more than made up for those misses. The end result is an extremely solid roster from top to bottom.
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In fact, free agency has been fairly boring this year for Bears fans and that’s largely due to the fact that the Bears don’t have many needs. Outside of depth, and a kicker, there aren’t any glaring holes. This is all because of the remarkable job Pace has done since taking over, and it’s great to see him finally getting some recognition.