The Chicago Bears with Ryan Pace have a record of 34 wins and 46 losses.
We discussed a lot on the history of the other general managers for the Chicago Bears here. Since George McCaskey had started the primary ownership, the team hasn’t routinely had a general manager have successful careers.
Ted Phillips, more critical, became the Bear’s president and CEO in 1999. A lot will blame the lack of success on the CEO and the ownership. That blame is fair. I do believe that success starts from the top and works itself down. However, the same people up top have at least been around since 1984 in some relation or another.
Phil Emery had three seasons with Chicago and was let go after making massive changes that showed the Bears were trending towards a downward spiral. Jerry Angelo had 11 years with the Chicago Bears and found himself finishing around .500 most of the time with two very awful seasons.
Mark Hatley tried to rebuild a reliable team that was previously built by Rod Graves. Graves had four seasons with the Chicago Bears and only had two successful seasons in his 14 years in the league. Hatley took a team with potential from mediocre to awful. Context is critical here.
Ryan Pace took the job in a similar vein as Jerry Angelo — a team that was destroyed by the previous general manager. Phil Emery had a solid foundation left by Angelo and wanted to reform it to his high octane views. However, he created an unstable locker room with limited talent.
Pace had asked Phillips and the McCaskey family to give him time. He needed some time to rearrange the roster and get the correct people in the house to fix the culture. The McCaskey family and Ted Phillips agreed to be patient as they were with Jerry Angelo and let this thing play out. But going backward too much could end that rain.