Imrem: So just where will the Chicago Bears find next quarterback?

Chicago Bears rookie minicamp came and went over the weekend without a high-profile quarterback anywhere in sight.

QB conundrums are what the Bears have been best at over any lengthy period of time.

If linebackers and running backs were quarterbacks, the Bears would have won several more Super Bowls.

But Dick Butkus and Brian Urlacher weren't Terry Bradshaw and Tom Brady, while Gale Sayers and Walter Payton weren't Joe Montana and Ben Roethlisberger.

The Bears won a Super Bowl with Jim McMahon and went to another with Rex Grossman, neither of whom will be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Current general manager Ryan Pace has fit right into the scenario.

Or maybe he hasn't.

We'll see.

Local clamor has been for the Bears to discover or invent a quarterback to succeed Jay Cutler, who is 33 years old and not exactly the Mike Singletary or even Matt Forte of the position.

If it were up to me - registered splashmaster that I am - I would have selected Paxton Lynch with the No. 11 over all pick in last month's NFL draft.

You know, just because.

(I'm still miffed that previous GM Phil Emery didn't take Arlington Heights native/Rolling Meadows High grad Jimmy Garoppolo in the 2014 draft.)

Maybe Pace's background is a clue to where he's coming from on the subject of acquiring a franchise quarterback.

Or maybe it isn't.

Time, life's greatest indicator, will tell.

So what's the deal with Pace choosing not to choose a quarterback during his first two drafts as Bears GM?

The next two drafts are projected to be weak in quarterbacks, so does Pace know something that others don't?

Does Pace himself even know what his QB strategy is, and would he tell you what it is if he did know?

Well, the following is just my own combination of theory, speculation and guesswork based on the fact that Pace came to the Bears from the Saints, whose only Super Bowl victory was achieved with Drew Brees at quarterback.

The Saints didn't draft Brees. He became available because of a QB glut in San Diego, recently had shoulder surgery and wound up in New Orleans as a risky free agent.

Maybe Pace believes that when the time comes - when Cutler finally exhausts his time here - the Bears will find the next Brees on some veteran QB heap somewhere.

Some team will wind up with two quality quarterbacks and have to part with one. Or some healing quarterback will come on the market. Or some journeyman will mature at just the right time to fit the Bears' needs.

The last thing Pace wants now is for the Bears to be so bad that they draft so high that they'll have a shot at the top QB emerging from college.

There never has been only one way to have a winning quarterback.

Sometimes a GM relies on a formula, sometimes on serendipity, and sometimes on a combination of the two.

The easy way is to take Peyton Manning with a No. 1 overall draft pick. A harder way is to take Tom Brady in the sixth round. Maybe the hardest way is to find a surgically repaired Drew Brees as a free agent … but it has happened.

Whichever way is Ryan Pace's way - if he has a way - the Bears can only hope it's a way that solves their perpetual quarterback conundrum.

Sooner than later is preferable.

mimrem@dailyherald.com