Pace and space
GM has a greater grasp of his personnel, and plenty of cap room to address problem areas
With a year under his belt and a system in place, Bears GM Ryan Pace is better prepared to make moves and add players this offseason. “We can be a little more targeted now that we really know our team extremely well,” Pace said.
General manager Ryan Pace’s film sessions probably don’t include the Food Network. If they did, though, he’d find kindred spirits on “Chopped,” the show in which contestants must make courses using four mandatory ingredients.
Pace did his best impression of the show in his first season— “What can you create with one of the franchise’s worst defenses, an unhappy Martellus Bennett, a quarterback on the brink of disaster and Brandon Marshall?” — and he performed well.
Pace’s grading curve was commensurate with his learning curve.
He and coach John Fox’s staff stabilized Jay Cutler and got younger, and they were forgiven (mostly) for the Ray McDonald and Jeremiah Ratliff embarrassments. Now, the expectations change. A good short-order cook isn’t always a good chef, and we’re about to learn what happens when Pace and Fox take the time to open a restaurant with seed money— the second-most cap space in the NFL.
“We can be a little more targeted now that we really know our team extremely well,” Pace said this week. “I don’t think you’re going to see us make one splash free-agent signing. I think it’s going to be kind of, spread out your resources a little bit.”
The Bears need pieces, and they’ll go get them.
They were forced to do that on the fly last season. After being hired 364 days ago, Pace had to hire a coach, front-office staffers, trainers and dieticians.
He taught his scouting department a whole new way to grade players.
Pace didn’t finish his overhaul until May— after the draft— when he added college scouting director Joe Douglas and pro personnel director Champ Kelly.
By then, the Bears had acquired most of their offseason haul. Pace knew not to wade too deep into free agency without knowing his team first. He signed three free agents to deals that lasted longer than a year— outside linebacker Pernell McPhee, wide receiver Eddie Royal and safety Antrel Rolle.
The rest were prove-it deals to players who fit the team’s new system: cornerbacks Tracy Porter and Alan Ball, linebacker Sam Acho and defensive end Jarvis Jenkins to play Vic Fangio’s 3-4 defense, and Will Montgomery to plug a hole in the center of the offensive line.
“I think last year there might’ve been a little more one-year deals than we would typically do,” Pace said. “Just because I think part of that is, ‘Hey, we’re just getting here. We want to evaluate our team, and these one-year deals give us a little bit of flexibility.’
“But I don’t like to put all our eggs in one basket in free agency.”
In the future, Pace would like to worry only about re-signing his own players, the way the Packers do. The Bears’ roster isn’t close to that point yet.
“I think initially you have a lot of needs, so you do have to kind of tread in that water a little bit,” he said.
After doing just that last season — treading water— Pace will use a year’s worth of knowledge to wade into the deep end of free agency.
With a full staff, he knows it’s sink or swim.
“Honestly, I just have a better feel for . . . OK, some areas, when you come in, they exceed your expectations,” he said. “Some areas are better than what we thought. Some areas, as we get more into it, man, we really need to address this here.
“So I think just our focus on areas we want to improve more than others.
“There’s more clarity, if that makes sense.”