5 messes that Ryan Pace will leave Chicago Bears next GM

2. Khalil Mack cap hit

Nobody is questioning the Khalil Mack trade, and he has been great on the field. However, Pace has once again made a mess in an effort to win big in the past two years. He restructured and pushed back the contract of Khalil Mack as much as he could.

Now, Mack will enter 2022 with a $30M cap hit, which would make him one of the highest-paid players in the NFL based on the 2022 cap hit. That includes all quarterbacks.

Khalil Mack is still fine when he is healthy, but the days where he is the best defender in the NFL are probably over, and now he is making big-name quarterback money,

Ryan Pace got the best years of Mack, and now the new GM has to pay for it. The big issue here is that there is not much he can do about it.

The new GM can extend Mack, and push his cap hit back further, but it just leaves a bill to be paid when he is even older. The Bears got great production out of Quinn but restructured his deal this season as well, and now the Bears will have the highest-paid duo on the edges in the NFL by a long shot.