Chicago Bears: Ryan Pace on the hot seat, not Matt Nagy

It’s no surprise the Chicago Bears disappointed everyone in 2019, no one saw this coming. Instead of getting a pay-raise, Ryan Pace will be on the hot seat come 2020.

The Chicago Bears‘ General Manager Ryan Pace has made some bone-headed draft picks since he took over four years ago. I won’t blame him for not drafting Patrick Mahomes because no one saw Mahomes as an NFL ready quarterback. He was considered a prospect by many experts, they were very wrong.

I don’t blame him for drafting Mitchell Trubisky because I still believe he can become a solid quarterback. Trubisky has consistency issues but he has shown how much potential he has. What I do blame him on the Trubisky trade was trading up one spot with the San Francisco 49ers to draft him. The Bears would have gotten Trubisky at number three. Let’s say the 49ers did draft Trubisky since they needed a quarterback. The Bears would have drafted Deshaun Watson at three.

That will go down as one of the worst trades on draft day, even if Trubisky wins league MVP someday. The 49ers weren’t going to draft him. Even if other teams traded up to draft him, Watson was still on the board. Just like the New York Giants did last year, if you feel like you have your next franchise quarterback, you draft him when you can.

I like Trubisky a lot. He only started 13-games in college. He was a project and was forced in too soon. I consider him a college senior when you look at his body of work. He hasn’t played enough football to make a full assessment. If he played four full seasons in college, it would be easy to make the assessment.

Where Pace messed up in 2017 was signing Mike Glennon to a three-year deal worth $45,000,000. The smart move would have been keeping Jay Cutler, drafting your future quarterback and letting him sit and learn. Signing Matt Nagy in 2018 was an okay decision. The jury is still out on him. Imagine Cutler and Nagy together. If Nagy is really the genius people say he is, he would have done fine with Cutler.

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Cutler’s contract would have had him leaving Chicago after the 2020 season. He is only 36 right now. Cutting Cutler was a bad decision on Pace’s part. With Nagy having time to let Trubisky sit and learn the full offense, everything could be different.

For example, Aaron Rodgers sat and learned Mike McCarthy‘s offense for many years before he started in Green Bay. With Nagy coming to Chicago, just like Rodgers, he would have been learning the system he would grow into. Trubisky was forced to learn what John Fox was doing in 2017. In 2018, he had to switch everything to learn his second offense in two seasons.

Just that decision there would have kept Pace off the hot seat next year. Cutler, the veteran quarterback, holding the keys of the offense for three seasons before giving Trubisky the starting job. I wonder what would have happened in this scenario.

Moving on, in 2017 Pace missed out on three-star players. He missed out on George Kittle, instead, he drafted Adam Shaheen. He missed out on Alvin Kamara, instead, he drafted Tarik Cohen. Last but not least, he missed out on JuJu Smith-Schuster. Imagine having even two of those guys to work with Cutler, then Trubisky next year.

I’m going to give him credit for getting Khalil Mack but then take some back. Mack has been too quiet for what he’s worth in 2019. It has sidelined this defense from being great. They’re really good, not great. I blame him and Nagy for signing Chuck Pagano instead of someone else that fits the system from 2018. Pagano is a totally different guy than Vic Fangio. Their defensive schemes aren’t close.

So, why Pace and not Nagy? Nagy is going into year three. Pace has been here a lot longer. He Coach Fox and Coach Nagy. Fox was a bust, Nagy isn’t just yet. Bringing in a new General Manager to have one year with Coach Nagy is smart. It takes the pressure off of the new General Manager of finding a new coach right away.

If the team misses the playoffs in 2020, Pace has to go. When they get a new General Manager, he has to be tougher on Nagy. He has to have some say on if Nagy should continue to call plays or not. Nagy gets one year with the new General Manager and he makes the decision to keep him or not. It’s low-risk and decides if they need to rebuild or build-up from what they have.

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The moral of the story is this, Pace will go before Nagy or at the same time. There won’t be a scenario where Nagy goes and Pace stays. Pace in 2017 alone missed four key decisions that set the Bears back in 2019. He should have kept Cutler, drafted Kittle, Kamara, and Smith-Schuster. Cutler is the biggest one, it would have given Trubisky time to learn and absorb the culture here at Hallas Hall. Instead, they rushed him into a situation that he might need to leave to find success in this league.

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