The Chicago Bears GM Ryan Pace enters 2019 with plenty of hope, but also some uncertainty. Beloved defensive coordinator Vic Fangio is gone, leaving his #1 defense behind to become a head coach in Denver. His replacement Chuck Pagano was out of the league in 2018 and hasn’t been a coordinator for eight years. It’s hard to say for sure how he’ll handle the job after so long, even with a stacked roster of talent at his disposal.
For Pace though the bigger concern is resources. It’s apparent the Bears are a much better football team now but they’re still not quite good enough to threaten in the NFC. Not yet. They need some finetuning. Maybe one or two more key additions in order to make a genuine push to go after a Super Bowl. That may be difficult this year.
Chicago will start the offseason with less than $20 million in salary cap space and have three key free agents to deal with in Bryce Callahan, Adrian Amos, and Bobby Massie. The bigger worry is the draft where they won’t have either a 1st or 2nd round pick. One would think such a situation might make a GM nervous.
Not Pace, and he has a good reason for being self-assured about it.
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Ryan Pace is right to view Saints 2012 offseason as a blueprint for 2019
People thought the Saints really didn’t have much they could do going into 2012. They had no 1st or 2nd round picks due to previous trades. On top of that, they were pressed for any sort of salary cap space at the time with a looming Drew Brees extension on the horizon. So they couldn’t afford to do any sort of heavy spending. How in the world could they hope to add any difference-makers?
As it turns out, never underestimate a good GM when he’s presented a challenge. Mickey Loomis may have had one of the most underrated offseasons in recent memory. Despite having just five picks in the 2012 draft, he managed to secure Akiem Hicks in the 3rd round who would go on to become a Pro Bowler. Granted it wasn’t in New Orleans but that doesn’t mean it was a bad pick.
What many people also forget is the Saints signed veteran free agent guard Ben Grubbs to a five-year, $36 million contract despite the significant cap concerns. He started every game for three seasons in New Orleans and went to the Pro Bowl in 2013, helping the Saints return to the playoffs. So nobody can say the lack of resources hampered them from improving their roster.
One could say the Bears are in an even better position this time around. They have more money than the Saints did at that time and slightly higher draft position since New Orleans lost in the divisional round rather than the wild card. So Pace has been in this sort of position before. He sounds confident that he can find a way to make this team better in anticipation of making a deeper run next season.
