Chicago Bears: Predicting the draft based on Ryan Pace’s prior patterns

The Chicago Bears under Ryan Pace has been a roller coaster ride of emotion every draft.

One thing remains sure with Chicago Bears General Manager Ryan Pace. When he has a conviction on his player, he moves up to get him. Sometimes that is good, and he finds players like Nick Kwiatkowski. Sometimes that’s bad, and he trades up for players that don’t net much capital like Leonard Floyd.

Ryan Pace hasn’t just traded up to gain movement in the draft. He has moved players before the draft to add draft capital as well. Brandon Marshall and a seventh-round pick were traded to the New York Jets for a fifth-round pick that became Adrain Amos.

There was a mix of trades in 2016 after Pace moved up two spots to grab Leonard Floyd that resulted in running down and up to eventually acquire Cody Whitehair, Nick Kwiatkowski, Deon Bush, and more draft assets.

There was another such move in 2017 to move up one spot to acquire Mitch Trubisky and move around day two and three to acquire other players. There are ways to tell if Ryan Pace is going to stay put, move up, or trade down with his first draft selection. In 2015 Ryan Pace had leaked information on being interested in Marcus, Mariota, Leonard Williams, Brandon Scherff, Amari Cooper, Kevin White, Vic Beasly, and Danny Shelton the most.

Names like Landon Collins, T.J. Yeldon, Shane Ray, Eddie Goldman, and Max Williams are also on that list. So now it just becomes selection by elimination. The names lefts on the board could have suggested trade down, but a few nationally projected names were still available.

You can follow these same steps throughout every draft Ryan Pace has had except for the 2017 draft. That one still escapes me. I do think Pace just panicked a little and did not trust his process. Unless he only had two players in that specific tier being Mitch Trubisky and Myles Garrett. That’s for another topic.