Ryan Pace was able to take a few minutes to celebrate this past week as the Sporting News named him the NFL Executive of the Year for his exemplary work in the 2018 offseason. One that saw him hired Matt Nagy as head coach, signed Allen Robinson, draft Roquan Smith, and trade for Khalil Mack in the space of just a few months. This run turned the Chicago Bears into NFC North champions.
So many good things have happened thanks to Pace’s work that it’s easy to forget he wasn’t always on such stable ground. Just over a year ago, things weren’t looking great. The Bears had just come off their third-straight losing season under him in 2017, going 5-11. They had fired head coach John Fox and had a future in question.
Most felt that Pace was likely safe. Most of the problems with the team had nothing to do with personnel. However, team president Ted Phillips told Adam Jahns of the Chicago Sun-Times it wasn’t that simple. As the team was preparing to move on from Fox, he and ownership got together and had a serious discussion on whether to keep Pace.
If coach John Fox was on the chopping block, what did that mean for Pace?
“I said, ‘We need to talk about Ryan before we go get a head coach because he only has two years left [on his contract],’ ” Phillips said. “Either he’s our guy or we need to make another change there, too.”
They discussed Pace’s signings in free agency.
“I would say it was 50-50 at best,” Phillips said.
And they discussed Pace’s draft picks.
“There was at least a sense in the ’16 and ’17 picks that, ‘OK, we may have hit something special here,’ ” Phillips said. “But we don’t know yet.”
The Bears felt Ryan Pace had done enough to earn another chance
In the end, it was Pace’s conviction, steadiness, and work ethic that convinced the Bears brass that he deserved another chance to get things right. Phillips made it clear the discussion was mostly positive and they quickly came to the conclusion he should stay.
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Phillips called extending Pace’s contract by three years a “pretty easy decision.” It was a quick negotiation, too. No agents were needed.
It was a calculated risk by Phillips and the McCaskeys. Nobody would’ve been surprised if they’d cleaned the slate and started fresh with a new GM. Instead they took the same approach they had with Jerry Angelo years ago. They bought into what he was building and let him go out and find the coach who could bring it all together. Angelo got Lovie Smith and the rest is history.
It would seem that the same mode of operation is already working wonders with Pace.
