Ryan Pace isn’t naive. He understands there is a bottom line in the NFL. Either win football games or eventually get replaced. Thus far in five seasons as Chicago Bears GM, he’s had one winning season. That is why he no doubt operated with a sense of urgency this offseason. Despite limited resources, he traded for Nick Foles and his expensive contract from Jacksonville. Then he signed veteran pass rusher Robert Quinn to a $70 million deal. A lot of new faces have arrived on the roster.
It is hope they will provide enough of a boost to the team that went 8-8 last year to get back into the postseason. Something that would likely save his job. If not, he stares down the prospect of a fifth season in six years having failed to qualify. It would be difficult to justify him staying at that point. That is if these were normal circumstances.
Anybody who has watched the world in the past few months knows they’ve been anything but normal.
COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on the sports world. Football included. While the NFL is handling matter well enough, the same can’t be said for the NCAA. Uncertainty around whether games will be played in 2020 has created anarchy in the scouting community according to Chase Goodbread of NFL.com.
“For all the ways COVID-19 impacted the back end of the NFL draft process in the spring, from the ceasing of pro day workouts to the cancellation of its Las Vegas venue in favor of a one-of-a-kind virtual broadcast, it stands to shake up the front end of the 2021 draft cycle in a number of ways.
In fact, where scouting is concerned, it already has.
As colleges grapple with the challenges of navigating a football season through a pandemic, scouts find themselves without key information on top prospects for 2021 that they normally already would have by this point in the summer. And the very nature of a scout’s job — specifically, the occupational routine of heavy travel — could potentially place them in a deeper level of protocol for access to college campuses this fall.”
So how does this scenario help Ryan Pace?
Keep this in mind. The Bears scouting staff as it stands is having trouble establishing a plan for 2021. This is a group that has been together for the most part since 2015. Now try to imagine what were to happen if the Bears suddenly decided they wanted to shake things up. That means a new GM and probably new personnel directors. So the scouts not only have to wrestle with incomplete information for a draft, but now have to worry about losing their jobs from new, unknown bosses.
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That sounds like a tailor-made recipe for disaster. This is why Ted Phillips and George McCaskey may choose to postpone a shift away from Pace even if the team struggles again this year. While it would be a tough call, there is logic behind it. What has a better chance of finding offseason success? A rookie GM and a new front office with incomplete information or a GM with a structure already in place whom the scouts know and trust?
Neither answer is 100% correct. Still, the safer one would be keeping Ryan Pace one more year.
