Rozner: With Dalton on board, the Bears are right on Pace

Seriously, what did you think Ryan Pace was going to do?

The Bears don't have the assets, cap space or head coach that would have given them a legitimate shot at Deshaun Watson or Russell Wilson.

No, the Bears GM was destined to replace the misery of Mitch Trubisky - among the worst two or three quarterbacks in football the last four years - with someone only slightly better.

Or perhaps just as bad.

Andy Dalton, who signed with the Bears Tuesday, falls into the category of only slightly better, and that's only because he knows how to play the position, he can remember the plays and read a defense.

But that doesn't mean he's any good. He's not. In fact, he'll be lucky to beat out Nick Foles if there's no training camp again.

That's how Trubisky "won" the job again last year. Foles never had a chance.

This, however, is like arguing over who should be the third catcher on the roster leaving spring training. In other words, it really doesn't matter.

You have an aging defense that has missed its window, a bad offensive line, not enough weapons and your best offensive player - Allen Robinson - has even less of a reason to sign his franchise tag now that he knows the landscape.

Having failed to reach agreement with Robinson, the Bears will now have to overpay the receiver or he's likely to hold out and force their hand.

As for Pace and Matt Nagy, you already knew they were facing their final year in Chicago, having survived to work here in 2021 when they had no business keeping their jobs.

It was only George McCaskey and Ted Phillips who believed they should remain, and one can only guess at the reasons why, but as you digest the Dalton news and suffer more intestinal discomfort, the blame rests entirely at the top with McCaskey and Phillips.

If you expected something heroic from Pace this time around, you must have already forgotten that he paid Mike Glennon $18 million to start four games, Trubisky $29 million in four years of brilliance and guaranteed Nick Foles $17 million.

If Virginia McCaskey is keeping score at home, that's $74 million for Glennon, Trubisky, Foles and Dalton, never mind the historic decision to move up, give away picks and draft Trubisky instead of Watson or Patrick Mahomes.

That's the stuff of Chicago sporting legend, a choice that fans will be talking about for decades.

No doubt, when Dalton is introduced, Pace will be fired up. Soon enough, Pace will be just plain fired.

Bears fans are left scratching their heads again, wondering why McCaskey would let Pace take the Bears through another offseason when Pace is so obviously a short timer.

But maybe Pace has a job for life. How else could one explain that he is still employed in Lake Forest? Now in his seventh year, Pace has produced one winning season and zero playoff victories.

That's an extraordinary record of futility given how bad the NFL is and how easy it is to rebuild in a parity-stricken league.

The most disturbing aspect is that by the end of the 2021 season, the Bears will need a new GM, coach and quarterback, and will be in total rebuild mode while up against the cap, when they could have begun the rebuild now and started trading assets while they still have value.

Instead, another wasted year of Bears football.

No one blames you for your anger today, for wanting to forfeit your season tickets or throw a brick through your television, but this was inevitable, the hiring of yet another bad quarterback to play for a bad coach in a bad offense.

If there's a positive, it's that Dalton will be hard-pressed to be worse than Trubisky, if indeed he gets a chance to play. Granted, it's an extremely low bar we're talking about here.

But you know me. Always searching for the positives.