Ryan Pace tends to get lambasted a lot for controversial decisions he makes every offseason. Then people are forced to revisit the issue months down the road and realize the Chicago Bears GM might actually know what he's doing. He let Cameron Meredith walk in 2017 as a restricted free agent to New Orleans. A move many felt was misguided. Since leaving the receiver has played in just six games with 114 yards total.
Next, he let both Adrian Amos and Bryce Callahan walk in free agency this past offseason. Amos signed a lucrative contract with the Green Bay Packers while Callahan did the same with the Denver Broncos. Amos remains the steady if unremarkable player he was in Chicago. Callahan? He hasn't and will not play a snap in 2019. Pace replaced both of them with Ha Ha Clinton-Dix and Buster Skrine, two quality players, for less than $6 million combined this season.
The biggest move though that drew the anger of fans was his decision to trade running back Jordan Howard to the Philadelphia Eagles for a conditional draft pick. For a time that looked like a bad move as the former Pro Bowl was quite productive the first two months of the season including an 82-yard effort in a win over Chicago. However, that ended up being the last game Howard has played to date as he's missed over a month of the season now with a shoulder injury.
In that time, rookie David Montgomery has surpassed him in yards from scrimmage (853 to 594).
Ryan Pace is a master at replacing good role players for cheap
People must now respect Pace. It's easy to criticize such moves in the moment because of how good certain players were. However, none of them involved actual star players. This is how good GMs are supposed to operate. Keep the stars in-house and let the role players who are about to get overpaid go somewhere else. Let Amos and Callahan make a combined $16 million with other teams. He'll corral Clinton-Dix and Skrine for a little over $5 million. Let the Eagles pay Howard $2 million. He'll take Montgomery for $756,000 and a draft pick.
That is good football business. Nobody is saying Pace has been perfect. He has plenty of missteps he deserves criticism for, but the guy has done a good job. Especially when it comes to knowing when and when not to pay certain players. Howard was a good guy and a solid running back. However, he wasn't "special." Pace knew he couldn't afford to keep him long-term, so he got the best deal possible in order to move on. It may not have seemed like it at first, but that was the exact right decision to make.
