Rozner: Seems Bears GM Pace can do no wrong

Ryan Pace is behaving like a man who received a contract extension and didn't tell anyone about it.

If true, it's understandable that George McCaskey and Ted Phillips didn't want anyone to know and refused to answer the question a couple months ago. The legion of Pace cheerleaders has disappeared, even much of the media having abandoned ship.

If not true, if he doesn't have a contract beyond this season, then there is no understanding what the general manager is doing to your football team - which has been the case going to back to the draft of Mitch Trubisky.

That was nearly four years ago, a night that brought so much excitement from all the Pace supporters. That was not the case in this space and Bears Nation was not at all happy with this take.

That night, it said here that, "Ryan Pace just put himself on the clock.

"First, he gave up three picks - including third and fourth rounders this year - to move up into a spot where the Niners had no intention of taking a quarterback, and then Pace reached way up to get North Carolina QB Mitchell Trubisky.

"So lemme get this straight ... The Bears signed quarterback Mike Glennon for three years and $45 million ($18 million guaranteed).

"They hugely overpaid to move up one spot in the draft to take a quarterback."

And they didn't move up to take Deshaun Watson or Patrick Mahomes.

"They took Mitchell Trubisky, a quarterback who started 13 games in college. And they gave up all those picks when they could have had Trubisky at third without so much as a sneeze. That about sum it up?" I asked that night, eliciting many an angry tweet and email. "It was going to be hard for Pace to botch this one because there were too many good players available.

"Instead, he went for Trubisky, who for two years at North Carolina could not beat out Marquise Williams, a QB who went undrafted.

"This is a GM who believes he knows something no one else knows, that he's the smartest guy in the room. His picks have told us that repeatedly.

"For his own sake, Ryan Pace better be a genius and Mitch Trubisky better be great. If not, Pace will have to sell his story somewhere else."

But I could not have been more wrong.

Trubisky didn't cost Pace his job. That was four years ago and Pace is still here for 2021 - and perhaps beyond. The horrible Trubisky decision did not affect Pace's employment with the Bears in any way.

He is heading into his seventh year as the general manager in Lake Forest. It's really impossible to understand, given his one winning season in six years and no playoff victories.

It was quite something when John Fox got all the blame the year Trubisky was drafted. Fox was fired and Pace got a contract extension through 2021, when it was Fox who could see after just a few games that Trubisky couldn't understand the offense and couldn't think the NFL game.

But Pace was rewarded for a 14-34 record. He hired Matt Nagy to fix Trubisky - when the rest of the NFL already knew what Trubisky was - and we all know how that went with Nagy, the unparalleled offensive genius and dynamic postgame dancer.

By the way, whatever happened to that narrative, the one where Nagy is hip and cool and a football genius because he dances with his players?

Digression aside, Pace is still here and fully in charge, signing Andy Dalton and getting rid of Kyle Fuller, an aging defense losing one of its best players.

The likes of Robert Quinn, Nick Foles and Jimmy Graham are all still here to the tune of $110 million, and no doubt Pace has big plans for another sneaky quarterback acquisition in the draft.

Maybe he'll search for the next Kevin White, his first pick in Chicago and a selection every bit as baffling as Trubisky. The Bears were rebuilding and needed, well, everything, especially help on both lines. Pace picked an injured wide receiver to kick off his managing career.

I thought that night Pace wouldn't survive three years here. Then, he took Trubisky and I continued to believe such extraordinarily bad decisions must be what move the McCaskeys to fire the GM.

Yet, this is his seventh season and it seems nothing he can do will cost him his job. The way he's behaving suggests he's got more on his term than we know.

But you must stop shaking your head now. Long-term studies done on Bears fans suggest it's bad for the brain.