Pace NFL Exec of the Year

[BearFan PHX]

Surprised no one said anything about this. I know it's fun to play monday morning GM, and for many years (decades!) it's actually been possible that we knew better than the actual guys at Halas Hall making the decisions. And for a professional sports franchise, that is actually insane.

I am glad to say that we are now many levels below the decision makers for the Bears, and the entire league sees what a great job he's done.

https://www.chicagobears.com/news/pace-receives-nfl-executive-of-year-award

[jason]

Hell, I didn't even know. It's nice to have a guy in place who actually has a few more hits than misses. For several years we could have randomly thrown darts and done better at the draft than Bears leadership. 

[adam]

To hit on that many free agents (Robinson, Gabriel, Burton), draft picks (Smith, Daniels, Miller, Nichols) and trade (Mack) while also hiring the Coach of the Year, matching Fuller offer and letting Meredith walk all in one offseason is pretty remarkable. However, how much influence does the coach have in these decisions? This was following the year where he drafted Trubisky, Cohen, and Jackson (great) but missed on a ton of free agents (bad). Crazy what a year can make. I guess for every Cohen, we will have to live with a Shaheen, for every White, a Smith.

Remember the 2017 free agents:

Glennon, Sanchez, Demps, Sims, Amukamara, Cooper, Wheaton, Wright, Jenkins, Cunningham. 

Only Amukamara remains on the roster.

I like the pieces that we have added, and I remember what we were saying in August (What the hell are the Bears going to do opposite of Floyd?) and somehow Mack fell in our laps. However, I don't know if we can continue to wait for something like that to happen again. 

In the end, the roster is his responsibility, and he has built a good one with some cap flexibility going into the season. 

[BearFan PHX]

I think Glennon was always meant as a placeholder for a drafted QB. He might even have been a peace offering to Fox to give him a chance to win and prove himself, knowing of course that he wasnt going to.

I also think they expected Glennon to be just decent (not great but not as bad as he seemed) and then they would trade him with his reasonable salary after the first year, thereby converting one year's free agent cap money into another years first round draft pick. It was a good plan, but Glennon sucked even worse than expected.

Good teams are built through the draft, and it's hard to blame Pace for his first free agency class.

Also, it took hiom a year to get his scouts into place too. You can see that the more decisions he makes, the more he shapes this team, the better it is.

[ASHKUM BEAR]

Pace said today in a presser how many FAs expressed interest in wanting to join this organization. The Bears finally established a culture. We have a young GM, young HC, and a young QB which can give us many years of winning.  As long as Pace stays on this course it is possible.

[BearFan PHX]

8 minutes ago, ASHKUM BEAR said:

Pace said today in a presser how many FAs expressed interest in wanting to join this organization. The Bears finally established a culture. We have a young GM, young HC, and a young QB which can give us many years of winning.  As long as Pace stays on this course it is possible.

+1

[AZ54]

28 minutes ago, ASHKUM BEAR said:

Pace said today in a presser how many FAs expressed interest in wanting to join this organization. The Bears finally established a culture. We have a young GM, young HC, and a young QB which can give us many years of winning.  As long as Pace stays on this course it is possible.

He also said that in years past it wasn't always that way “To be honest, sometimes you can be in a position where guys just flat out don’t want to be there. Or if you want them, you have to grossly overpay."   We know that pretty much holds true with the FAs he had to bring here in the last few years.  To his credit he always left a way out after a year even if it cost him a lot to do that while also managing to keep around the few good players like Hicks and Amukamara.         

[ASHKUM BEAR]

True, it took getting over that hump. It took getting the QB, which helped get the coach.  Now the team is nearly set without needing much in FA.  We are already slated to gain a 4th and 5th in the 2020 draft for losing Callahan and Amos.  If we can continue to draft well and sign cheap FAs, the gains will grow when we do lose our own to FA, like Howard next off season.  

[BearFan PHX]

57 minutes ago, ASHKUM BEAR said:

True, it took getting over that hump. It took getting the QB, which helped get the coach.  Now the team is nearly set without needing much in FA.  We are already slated to gain a 4th and 5th in the 2020 draft for losing Callahan and Amos.  If we can continue to draft well and sign cheap FAs, the gains will grow when we do lose our own to FA, like Howard next off season.  

I still think there is a good chance Howard will be traded this year.

[Mongo3451]

1 hour ago, BearFan NYC said:

I still think there is a good chance Howard will be traded this year.

I would bet money that's the case.

[BearFan2000]

18 minutes ago, Mongo3451 said:

I would bet money that's the case.

Wouldn't be surprised if it happened during the draft. 

Pace has done a great job overall.  He's made some mistakes as all GMs do, but he took over an utter dumpster fire of a team and he has the Bears back on the winning track with a solid young core.  It sure has been nice this offseason not needing to make big splash signings to fill major holes in the roster.  We've gone from more needs than we can fill in an offseason to fine tuning the roster.  

[Stinger226]

He made many mistakes in his first few years but he is rolling now. Last 2 years have given us players that have us on the brink of the SB. The first year he had the old regime scouting dept. Also until last year he had Fox in his war while drafting.  Anyone going to disagree those are 2 negative aspects of what he did.