Ryan Pace Broke from Draft Strategy to Select Leonard Floyd

Ryan Pace is already considered a very good, well-respected general manager in NFL circles. This has happened in just one year for the 38 year-old executive. He has a plan in place for the Chicago Bears. He wants to build a deep group of young, athletic football players that can develop and become stars. When one leaves for free agency, the Bears will have a young, hungry player ready to take his place. The Bears have been applauded for two very good draft classes, the 2016 class still has to prove it on the field, but the 2015 class had very good returns, despite first round pick Kevin White missing the entire season.

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But that doesn’t mean that a GM that is already building a good reputation should be immune from criticism. Despite making several good selections, it’s Pace’s first round choice that should be questioned. Leonard Floyd could become a hall of fame pass rusher or the next Shea McClellin. No one truly knows what the Bears have in Floyd because even the best scouts are wrong on a regular basis. Drafting a player like Floyd in the first round is dangerous. Drafting projects in the later rounds is usually a better idea than drafting someone that needs to improve in multiple areas before they can be considered a contributor to the football team.

Preferably, a first round pick should be a player that has already developed their skills and has the size to immediately contribute to a football team. Those type of players have a higher success rate, but the Bears aren’t worried about that. They are looking for the future, so a player like White or Floyd is worth the risk because the Bears are looking for higher ceilings and ready to not only contribute, but to star in 2017, 2018 and beyond.

Pace wanted Floyd. When word leaked that the New York Giants were going to select Floyd one pick ahead of Chicago, Pace jumped up to select the man he wanted on his roster. But trading up to select a player is against the very strategy that Pace holds true in drafts: best player available. Pace doesn’t want to select a need at CB or a desire to upgrade at RB, he wants to select the best football player available at that time, regardless of position, and to build up the football team’s depth at multiple positions thanks to drafting the best possible player every single opportunity.

Clearly the Bears loved Floyd and trading up was worth it in their eyes, but the very idea of it is against the best player available strategy. This trade becomes even more questionable when the best player available was in the middle of a free fall.

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Less than a month ago, Laremy Tunsil was considered the number one pick in the draft. After trades that ensured quarterbacks would be selected first and second, Tunsil was still considered most likely going to be selected third, but no worse than top five. But then controversy hit Tunsil’s social media account showing him smoking a bong and text messages that proved he had accepted illegal benefits while at Ole Miss. This, mixed in with a domestic abuse charge, corned teams into deciding that Tunsil wasn’t worth the risk, and the tumble began.

Tunsil plummeted right out of the top 10 and would have been sitting for the Bears at 11. The Bears passed, as did other teams, until the Miami Dolphins scooped him up at 13. When Ryan Pace was asked about Tunsil after the draft, he informed the media that the organization never even considered drafting the left tackle.

Excuse me?

The Bears supposed plan was to take the best player available, and arguably the best player in the draft was available to the Chicago Bears at 11. There’s no doubt that the Bears didn’t consider Tunsil because of his off-the-field problems. But are the problems really unique to Tunsil? Tunsil’s domestic charge was eventually dropped, and further investigation showed that Tunsil wasn’t abusing a child or a woman, he was defending his mother from his abusive step-father. The step-father claims he was criticizing Tunsil which led to the violent strike, but this is the same individual that’s suing Tunsil for money so his credibility is certainly within question.

Tunsil was already suspended in 2015 for illegally accepting benefits so these text messages are actually to no surprise to any football teams, and allowing yourself to be filmed while smoking marijuana clearly shows poor judgement, but let’s be honest, how many players drafted in 2016 had accepted illegal benefits and smoked marijuana? While that question is impossible to answer, ask anyone with any understanding of the inner workings of college football programs and they will all tell you that Tunsil is far from alone, in fact, there are several that behaved exactly like he did, and teams rarely concern themselves with those details.

Tunsil is athletic, skilled, and ready to step onto an NFL football field and contribute. He has had some issues in the past, which clearly scared some NFL teams, but after a bumpy few days of PR, this would be the type of story that would be quickly buried behind other news about the team. The Bears apparently love Charles Leno at left tackle, but while he is a serviceable player and one that has exceeded expectations, by no means is he a game changer. The Bears had a chance to select the cornerstone of their offensive line. Someone that, paired with Kyle Long at right guard, with have the foundation of the best offensive line in the NFL.

There’s no reason not to have plenty of faith in the talent Pace is acquiring and that he will continue to march the Bears towards competitive football. However, Pace missed an opportunity to truly select the “best player available” and one that should never have been available in the first place. The Bears probably never even considered the idea that Tunsil would fall out of the top five, and the Bears never even considered trading up that high and giving up the king’s ransom of picks they would have to part with to move up that far. When Tunsil fell, the Bears’ war room should have been doing their due diligence and figuring out if Tunsil was worth the risk. The Bears weren’t prepared for this scenario and instead of deviating from their plans to make their draft class even more dynamic, they decided not to flinch and stay the conservative course.

The Bears missed an opportunity. Perhaps Floyd will end up being a better player than Tunsil, but no one knows that for certain, the idea is to draft the player that will most positively impact your football team on Sundays, and despite some warts, and some unexpected ones that popped up on draft night, Tunsil should be a member of the Bears, and only time will tell if that’s something that the franchise will eventually regret.

Bill Zimmerman is an editor and featured writer for FanSided‘s BearGogglesOn. Like his Facebook page or follow him on Twitter for more news and interaction.