Chicago Bears: Reviewing just how bad Ryan Pace was this offseason

Even moving on from the 2020 season was difficult for the Chicago Bears

This all started with the announcement that Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace would be back for a fourth season. Chicago Bears fans had to listen to the likes of Ted Phillips and George McCaskey talk about Nagy and Pace in a positive light. I was on record that I thought either both had to go or both had to stay. Firing one and not the other made too little sense in my opinion.

After we knew they were staying and the fanbase calmed down a bit, we must fast forward to the start of the 2021 offseason. This is when the excrement really hit the fan for Ryan Pace. Kyle Fuller was approached and asked to take a pay cut. He wouldn’t, so Pace started shopping him around in possible trades. The problem is, Fuller was due $20 million dollars this season. As great as he is, he is not worth that much and the Bears were in a tough place with the salary cap.

After trade negotiations fell through, Kyle Fuller was cut in order to come under the cap and as most people will point out, to make room for Andy Dalton. Now, that’s not exactly true though. One, Ryan Pace (nor any GM) could not have predicted the repercussions of a global pandemic. He is at fault here for constantly restructuring and kicking the can down the road so-to-speak, but had the pandemic not happened, Kyle Fuller might still be on this team.

The salary cap reduction was not enough to warrant paying Fuller that much money in 2021, but it would have been possible that the team could have asked for a less drastic pay cut. Maybe then the team would still have Fuller on the roster.

Also, Dalton is not the issue either if we are being honest. At least not in the order of events. Dalton was signed to a one-year, $10 million dollar deal. However, Dalton’s salary cap hit was much lower than that as the team spread it out over two voidable years. Now the issue will be that the Bears will carry $7.5M in dead cap for Dalton next season. I can empathize with general managers having to move the money down the road, but eventually, as we saw this year, it can catch up to them and bite them in the rear.