Matt Nagy is not expected to be retained for a fourth season as Bears head coach, but the team is not certain to oust GM Ryan Pace. However, Pace’s status is among the matters being debated within the organization.
Firing Pace and potentially revamping the organizational structure are scenarios chairman George McCaskey is considering, according to The Athletic’s Adam Jahns (subscription required). Last month, a report emerged indicating Pace could well be back to hire a third coach. But the Bears have lost three of their past four games since then, with the lone win coming over the Lions. They are now 4-10, having dropped eight of their past nine.
McCaskey has completed early groundwork on making changes, per Jahns, who adds team president Ted Phillips is not a lock to stay in his role. While the Bears should not be expected to fire their longtime president, the prospect of Pace or another GM reporting directly to McCaskey in the future is on the table. The past three Bears GMs — Jerry Angelo, Phil Emery and Pace — have reported to Phillips, who serves as the team’s top non-McCaskey executive.
A Phillips retirement looms as a possibility, Jahns adds. Phillips has been in his post since 1999. His role as the exec between the GM and McCaskey became a point of contention during the Bears’ previous GM hiring cycle. Former Bears exec Chris Ballard, who was up for the job Pace landed, wanted to restructure the front office were he hired in 2015. That desire caused the Bears to move in a different direction. Ballard stayed with the Chiefs before becoming Colts GM.
Should they remain in their current roles, Phillips and Pace would be McCaskey’s point men in replacing Nagy, who is set to close a sub-.500 season for the first time. The Bears, however, have won one playoff game since advancing to Super Bowl XLI. The Buccaneers and Cardinals have benefited from allowing their GMs to hire a third head coach, with Jason Licht eventually signing Tom Brady and Steve Keim adding the Kliff Kingsbury–Kyler Murray duo. The Chargers have also allowed their GM, Tom Telesco, to select three HCs.
McCaskey keeping Pace on would not be a popular decision in Chicago, given his decision to trade up for Mitchell Trubisky in 2017, but he was also behind the team’s Justin Fields move. It would not shock if the first-time GM stuck around to help see that plan take shape. If the Bears keep Pace, he would certainly enter 2022 on a hotter seat. The franchise may need to act quicker than usual on the firing front, with the NFL now permitting teams with HC vacancies to interview candidates next week. Pace would stand to be at the center of the team’s next HC-hiring process, should be stay on as GM. The Bears have never fired a coach in-season.
Somehow Trubisky wasnt as bad as Fields in his rookie season.
The team was much better.
That’s because Fox ran the ball 50 times a game so he could lose 10-6 instead of 45-6
I liked Trubisky. I thought the problem was that he didn’t have a coach that knew how to develop him and instill plays that played to Trubisky’s strength. The reason why Nagy did not install plays for Trubisky is because Nagy is a fraud. All he knew were Andy Reid plays. He is also a fraud head head coach.
How many moves he Pace made that make him worthy of staying?
His only real accomplishment was stabilizing the kicker position with Santos after the disaster that Parkey created.
He created that K problem when he cut Robbie Gould because he made too much money. Then he paid Parkey more and cut him after the first year. I think the Bears are still paying Parkey to NOT play for them so yeah I agree. If that’s his biggest accomplishment, well it very well could be and I’ll leave it at that. Worst GM ever. If they keep him, everyone should stay away.
No matter what happens here, I just have a feeling the Bears will get it wrong. People lament the drafting of Trubisky and the hiring of Nagy, but to me this article identifies the real failure. Chris Ballard is an excellent GM and will be for a long time. Choosing Pace over Ballard will haunt the Bears when people have forgotten Trubisky’s name.
All because Ballard wanted Ted Phillips nowhere near the football operations…..
That’s because Ballard had a decade of experience working in the Bears organization previously. He knew what the problem was and didn’t want to do it the same way
This organization has been a joke for a while now. The McCaskeys are absolutely clueless! I know who Halas , but I’m almost 70. Manypeople don’t know who he is let alone the McCaskeys. Just sell the team and save whatever face you have left. If you don’t sell then clean house by dumping Philips Pace Nagy and George M.Hire John Dorsey and give him the keys. He’s built the Chiefs and brought the Browns back
Hey Strauss you might want to rethink that thought when you find out that Virginia McCaskey is George Halas’s daughter. I think she knows who he was.
Having anyone reporting to McCaskey instead of Phillips improves nothing. The only way they can get out of their continual rut is for McCaskey to hire a football man to run the entire show- hiring the GM and coach, without owner interference. It’s amazing they haven’t taken notice of how the other 3 franchises in Chicago all did just that. The Cubs and Blackhawks won championships and the Bulls have completely turned it around this season- because ownership got out of the way. Wake up, McCaskey.
Every GM wants to stake their tenure on a QB pick. The new GM (if one comes) can dismiss any failure on not having “their guy” if Fields doesn’t turn out to be a stud under new leadership.
So, a couple years from now, a new QB will be drafted high and this cycle with da bears will continue. As a packer fan destined for a set back in the post Rogers era, it’s nice to know the bears will still suck.
And the band played on.
Licht went all out and bought himself a team, and Keim blew up his entire organization to save his job. Tom Telesco continues to have the Chargers hover at mediocre to good. The Bucs’ moves are the only ones that have borne fruit worth that risk so far. The others may have some positive potential, but given the amount of assets and effort given up to get to where they are, there’s nothing yet to say that it will be worth it. Besides, it doesn’t really take a very skilled GM to deal away valuable picks or spend huge amounts in free agency. Tampa is pretty much run by the players it seems, because they have so much accomplishment on the roster (even without Brady).
I’m just not sure that this is a ringing endorsement of incompetent GMs being allowed to select another coach in all cases. That sell out approach may give off some short term success, but does not usually produce long term stability after the GM saved his job. The Rams are another example, with Snead buying out talent to save his job after the L.A. move. They’re good now, sure, but unless they win the Super Bowl soon, these extraordinary moves will just wear on the team’s long term competitiveness. Tampa is the only team that’s gotten the full reward from it, and they’ve done it to a much higher level than any of the others.
Granted, we still have a few years to see the full evolution of these strategies, as most of these teams are still in their competitive windows.My point here is that a desperate GM who buys a super team to save his job is more often than not detrimental to your team. The payoff needs to be proportional to the price that you pay. Otherwise, your next GM will inherit a cash strapped team with no good picks and a bad record, like the Houston Texans.
Saying Licht bought himself a team is unfair. He built a roster that was a QB upgrade and a couple of free agent additions from being elite. He drafted three very good offensive linemen, their best defensive linemen, two star receivers, and a whole secondary. It’s not an accident they could recruit Brady et al. Licht hasn’t always been the best drafter, but he’s assembled a LOT more talent through the draft than Pace. Pace has traded up far too often and then not used his picks very well. He needs to be done.
I don’t think it’s unfair at all. The Bucs brought more than just a “few” free agents or traded players that start on this current team. Licht did draft a few pretty good players, but so have a few of these other GMs (even Pace) that we’re considering. “Buying” a team doesn’t mean that your players were exclusively not drafted by you. It means that you went outside for a lot of help. I am not comparing Pace to Licht, and I am only discussing the approach that hot seat GMs ending up turning to.
Of course, Licht brought in Brady. He also brought in Suh, Barrett, Fournette, Gronkowski, Brown, and Sherman. Those are just starters from trade/free agency, and each (minus Sherman) are key contributors to the team’s win total. I don’t know if you’d count Arians or not, but I would. Even though I think that the veteran players run the team in Tampa in terms of discipline, Arians is a strong enough personality to publicly be a focal point of the team (unlike, say, Dirk Koetter) and is a good offensive mind as well. If we go back a bit further, we could add Jason Pierre-Paul to that list, but he predates most of the others.
I don’t think that Licht is awful. I do think that he’s better than Pace. He did draft some very good players-Devin White, Wirfs, Winfield, Evans, etc.-but a significant portion of the Bucanneers’ starting production comes from outside their organization and has been added in a two year period. The team was actually okay before Brady with that core roster-they went 7-9 in a year that their QB alone had 30 interceptions (let alone fumbles). But, yes, they did in fact buy a team. Too much of their current production (from receiving touchdowns to passing stats to sacks to rushing yards) has been signed or traded for in the last two years. If that does not qualify as such, I’m not sure what would.
The number and quality of key contributors the Bucs have drafted absolutely dwarfs the recent Bears’ rosters. The Bucs’ drafted talent provided a foundation to add all these guys, including making it a desirable destination, and some of them haven’t even contributed that much. Sherman hasn’t even played 150 snaps for the Bucs. Fournette has been good, but it’s not like he’s making much. Barrett was a one year flyer before he broke out with them. To compare Pace and Licht is silly.
Again, I specifically said that I was NOT comparing the two. I was discussing how GMs, in an effort to save their jobs, attempt to buy championship teams or go all-in for the short term. For the Bucs, it worked. For the others, it hasn’t. If the Bears retain Pace, he may try and emulate that approach. I do not think that it will work, because other than Tampa, it has not yet done so for other teams. The previous post of mine was in response to your argument that Licht did not buy a team, which I disagree with. It was not comparing the GMs’ skills or records.
I am not in any way comparing Jason Licht to Ryan Pace as executives. I am just talking about that approach to going all in while on the hot seat.
I think of buying a team as when your hopes (and future payroll) in greatest part on expensive free agents. While Brady and Gronk, along with famous role players, headline the team in some ways, they haven’t committed all that much money and very few years to them. Other than Brady, who’s his own thing as a player and financially, these guys are really just finishing touches on a very strong homegrown roster. It’s sort of an all-in approach, but it’s not like they sacrificed much future to get there. If anything, they should still be well situated to attract another QB when Brady’s done.
Again, it worked for them. I would strongly argue that it was more than”finishing touches” that got added, but that’s a separate argument. I don’t think that by itself proves the effectiveness of such a strategy. Most GMs who try that end up hurting the team long term. So, with that said, if Pace is allowed to pick his third coach and continue to run the team, he may employ this strategy and hurt his team long term.
Anyone who does a bit of research will quickly learn that being near the top in payroll spending frequently fails to translate into on field success. As Ak185 correctly points out the “quick fix” approach often handcuffs GMs in future years.
When I saw the headline I had to click. I wanted to see if the front office in Chicago was getting new carpet, maybe a fresh coat of paint on the walls or some plants…
I mean let’s be honest, as much as they should fire Pace- they won’t unless he drives over the Chairman’s car with a monster truck or something.
You have the cap rising 25 million, Dalton’s 10 million can be cut, Hicks 9 million is going too. that’s 45 million in new cap money that a good GM can use to plug holes. No way do I want Pace anywhere NEAR that money. Robinson’s 17 million is either gone or they can try and re sign him but I don’t see any way he’s coming back to the same idiots here. For just his 17 million, you can get a couple decent WR’s. Oh and I almost forgot Graham’s 8 million can also come off, because Pace basically paid him to do nothing this year. Anybody else want him in charge of that much dough? I think not.
Maybe the McCaskeys should try owning a team in another sport because they’re clueless in football. And Soldier field is embarrassing!!! Painting the dirt green doesn’t help. It’s still a dump. Thanks Philips for your hard work negotiating the crappy lease
Duh!Chitown needs a bad ass GM!
How about Peyton Manning for President?He can help Fields,find a GM he can work with.Use his influence to get the RT coach!Just saying,great historical franchise needs to clean house and pick the guy to bring DaBears back!