Except pace didn't hire Fox, he was here about 7 days before Fox was hired. No way was this "his" hiring. That's well known also.
No way was he going to be able to fire him either, the owners are well known penny pinchers and weren't going to pay fox to sit on his hands for multiple years.
Except pace didn't hire Fox, he was here about 7 days before Fox was hired. No way was this "his" hiring. That's well known also.
No way was he going to be able to fire him either, the owners are well known penny pinchers and weren't going to pay fox to sit on his hands for multiple years.
You mean we haven't been doing that anyway?
nope. he's been the head coach. bad at his job, should have never been hired, but he has in fact been doing his job.
Co-owner John Mara said the team felt a shift in gears was unavoidable after meeting Steve Tisch following Sunday's loss in Oakland. "We agreed wholesale that changes needed to be made to this organization to get us back to the team we expect to be," he said. "We also agreed that it was pointless to wait any longer to make these changes."
Less than a month after issuing a statement that the team would make no changes to the coaching staff until after the season, the Giants pulled a U-turn Monday. "I changed my mind, we changed our minds," Mara said of reversing course. "Given all the events that have occurred, where we are as a franchise right now. To be honest with you, it became more and more apparent that we were going to have to do something at the end of the season. So we talked after the game and again this morning about why prolong it any longer. Why not just get it done now?
Co-owner John Mara said the team felt a shift in gears was unavoidable after meeting Steve Tisch following Sunday's loss in Oakland. "We agreed wholesale that changes needed to be made to this organization to get us back to the team we expect to be," he said. "We also agreed that it was pointless to wait any longer to make these changes."
Less than a month after issuing a statement that the team would make no changes to the coaching staff until after the season, the Giants pulled a U-turn Monday. "I changed my mind, we changed our minds," Mara said of reversing course. "Given all the events that have occurred, where we are as a franchise right now. To be honest with you, it became more and more apparent that we were going to have to do something at the end of the season. So we talked after the game and again this morning about why prolong it any longer. Why not just get it done now?
Sound familiar?
Well, what do they know? Teddy has the right attitude. It is pointless to make the changes because any of his changes will be pointless. So he is gonna wait til the end of the season.
It wouldn't bother me a bit (though I doubt it will happen) to see a complete housecleaning.
Remove Phillips COMPLETELY from any football operations whatsover Hire a VP of Football Ops Fire Pace and let VP of FO hire new GM Fire Fox & Co and let new GM hire a new HC
this would not make me cry in my beer.
PAce has no idea how much keeping Fox this last year has hurt him.
If he doesn’t know that then he’s a complete imbecile.
I think he does know it. He will never say so but in his deepest thoughts I’ll bet he’s kicking himself hard. But, wait a minute, haven’t you and Soul taken the position that he didn’t have a choice?
Im yanking your chain a bit here because whether or not Pace had free reign to fire Fox last year, he went along with not doing it. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. Since the past can’t be changed, hopefully Ryan Pace has had a few revelations from last off-season.
Firstly, that he can tell Phillips and McCaskey that they tried their way and it failed miserably. Now it’s time to do it MY way. Secondly, he’d better wake up to the fact that HE is gonna take the fall for ongoing lack of success, not George & Teddy. Pace’s W-L record as a GM is pathetically bad so far and if he doesn’t turn things around soon, he’s done for life as an NFL executive. No team is gonna hire him if he flops again next year and gets canned. His career is OVER, at least at the NFL level.
Id have a strong sense of urgency if I were Ryan Pace right now.
PAce has no idea how much keeping Fox this last year has hurt him.
If he doesn’t know that then he’s a complete imbecile.
I think he does know it. He will never say so but in his deepest thoughts I’ll bet he’s kicking himself hard. But, wait a minute, haven’t you and Soul taken the position that he didn’t have a choice?
Im yanking your chain a bit here because whether or not Pace had free reign to fire Fox last year, he went along with not doing it. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. Since the past can’t be changed, hopefully Ryan Pace has had a few revelations from last off-season.
Firstly, that he can tell Phillips and McCaskey that they tried their way and it failed miserably. Now it’s time to do it MY way. Secondly, he’d better wake up to the fact that HE is gonna take the fall for ongoing lack of success, not George & Teddy. Pace’s W-L record as a GM is pathetically bad so far and if he doesn’t turn things around soon, he’s done for life as an NFL executive. No team is gonna hire him if he flops again next year and gets canned. His career is OVER, at least at the NFL level.
Id have a strong sense of urgency if I were Ryan Pace right now.
lol.... I can't speak for Soul. I have in fact said that Fox may not have been his choice though. I always try to look through the lens of the guy making the decision to try to understand the forces at work and so to best understand not only the decisions but the drivers to the decision. First, everyone ALWAYS has a choice, so yes Pace had a choice, but look at the past situation
Pace was interviewed for a GM opening. One of 32 in the world. Obviously, he wanted it and felt he was ready for it. Now, I think he was aware of the Phillips issues because it had been publicized that others walked from the opportunity because of him. So one of three things happened.
1. He did not feel it would impact him. 2. He wanted the job so bad he did not care. 3. He felt he got enough assurances of his concerns that he felt he could work in the given constraints. Everyone is going to have a different feeling for how that dynamic would work or provide a scope limitation for him.
So, given that he decided to accept the position, he had to choose a coach. Now, he might have had one in mind. I would say that he did. Certainly did because if I remember the timeline correctly, Fox became available after he was hired so he had to have pitched a different HC to ownership. But the Bears also had a high powered and successful former GM as a consultant to help him. Fox becomes available, a former multiple SB reaching HC and he is green and raw. The consultant and ownership both like the choice for different reasons. Ownership so that you have some experience to balance the rawness of Pace, and Accorsi because he knows Fox. Given that a "gift candidate" fell into their lap, and everyone was excited about him and he had good credentials and the timeline was short, I can see how Pace decided to go with the consensus candidate rather than his former choice. After all, this was his first time and these guys had done it before and well... a guy of Foxes credentials does not come along so easy.
So did he have a choice? Certainly. But I can also see what happened and why he picked Fox. I do not have an issue so much with his picking Fox. I have more of an issue with his KEEPING Fox for this year. The trends... the performance... it was all there to be seen. Now, could he have let him go with two years left on his contract given that his bosses felt he was the right guy? Given that his bosses do not let a HC go unless he craps the bed as badly as Trestman, and at that time Fox had not, I think the answer is no.
I have no idea if he evaluated the potential that he would be turned down, and decided not to ask, if he asked and was told to wait another year because of the cost, or he decided himself that Fox needed another year. I tend to think that getting Ted and Georges approval at that time would have been very difficult. But if he did ask and was turned down, it strengthens his position with ownership since he saw a problem and tried to correct it.
SO I don;t really know what to say. I have no idea if it was Paces choice to keep Fox or not. I think he could not have hired him, but I also think that given the circumstances, it would have been hard not to hire him in the first place.
If he doesn’t know that then he’s a complete imbecile.
I think he does know it. He will never say so but in his deepest thoughts I’ll bet he’s kicking himself hard. But, wait a minute, haven’t you and Soul taken the position that he didn’t have a choice?
Im yanking your chain a bit here because whether or not Pace had free reign to fire Fox last year, he went along with not doing it. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. Since the past can’t be changed, hopefully Ryan Pace has had a few revelations from last off-season.
Firstly, that he can tell Phillips and McCaskey that they tried their way and it failed miserably. Now it’s time to do it MY way. Secondly, he’d better wake up to the fact that HE is gonna take the fall for ongoing lack of success, not George & Teddy. Pace’s W-L record as a GM is pathetically bad so far and if he doesn’t turn things around soon, he’s done for life as an NFL executive. No team is gonna hire him if he flops again next year and gets canned. His career is OVER, at least at the NFL level.
Id have a strong sense of urgency if I were Ryan Pace right now.
lol.... I can't speak for Soul. I have in fact said that Fox may not have been his choice though. I always try to look through the lens of the guy making the decision to try to understand the forces at work and so to best understand not only the decisions but the drivers to the decision. First, everyone ALWAYS has a choice, so yes Pace had a choice, but look at the past situation
Pace was interviewed for a GM opening. One of 32 in the world. Obviously, he wanted it and felt he was ready for it. Now, I think he was aware of the Phillips issues because it had been publicized that others walked from the opportunity because of him. So one of three things happened.
1. He did not feel it would impact him. 2. He wanted the job so bad he did not care. 3. He felt he got enough assurances of his concerns that he felt he could work in the given constraints. Everyone is going to have a different feeling for how that dynamic would work or provide a scope limitation for him.
So, given that he decided to accept the position, he had to choose a coach. Now, he might have had one in mind. I would say that he did. Certainly did because if I remember the timeline correctly, Fox became available after he was hired so he had to have pitched a different HC to ownership. But the BEars also had a high powered and successful for GM as a consultant to help him. Fox becomes available, a former multiple SB reaching HC and he is green and raw. The consultant and ownership both like the choice for different reasons. Ownership so that you have some experience to balance the rawness of Pace, and Accorsi because he knows Fox. Given that a "gift candidate" fell into their lap, and everyone was excited about him and he had good credentials and the timeline was short, I can see how Pace decided to go with the consensus candidate rather than his former choice. After all, this was his first time and these guys had done it before and well... a guy of Foxes credentials does not come along so easy.
So did he have a choice? Certainly. But I can also see what happened and why he picked Fox. I do not have an issue so much with his picking Fox. I have more of an issue with his KEEPING Fox for this year. The trends... the performance... it was all there to be seen. Now, could he have let him go with two years left on his contract given that his bosses felt he was the right guy? Given that his bosses do not let a HC go unless he craps the bed as badly as Trestman, and at that time Fox had not, I think the answer is no.
I have no idea if he evaluated the potential that he would be turned down, and decided not to ask, if he asked and was told to wait another year because of the cost, or he decided himself that Fox needed another year. I tend to think that getting Ted and Georges approval at that time would have been very difficult. But if he did ask and was turned down, it strengthens his position with ownership since he saw a problem and tried to correct it.
SO I don;t really know what to say. I have no idea if it was Paces choice to keep Fox or not. I think he could not have hired him, but I also think that given the circumstances, it would have been hard not to hire him in the first place.
I think your analysis is spot on and well stated.
And I agree with you that Pace probably had little choice in the initial hire and his greater fault lies in not insisting upon moving on from Fox after last season. All the more so since Pace knew he was going after a QB at the top of the draft and that the current coaching regime was definitely not suited to the task of developing him. That was a huge mistake I’m sure Ryan Pace now regrets.
Like I said earlier, George and Teddy aren’t going to fire themselves if the team continues to suck. Ryan Pace is going to take the fall for that. And keeping Fox/Logg for another year has made Pace’s turnaround harder and longer.
"Pace is in danger of overseeing the worst three-year stretch of Bears football since the schedule moved to 16 games in 1978."
Pace is safe for now, and he should be. But this next off-season, and regular season, will define his career in the NFL. He doesn't have to deliver a perfect team, but he does need to have decisive good management decisions that show that he can get the train back on the tracks here in Chicago. Improvement. Significant improvement. Then build on that in 2019.
If not, then he is a dead man walking. Like Angelo and Emery he won't get another shot at a GM job in this league. It's over.
Why should he?
Why is Pace just getting a free pass for the mess he created?
Pace is safe for now, and he should be. But this next off-season, and regular season, will define his career in the NFL. He doesn't have to deliver a perfect team, but he does need to have decisive good management decisions that show that he can get the train back on the tracks here in Chicago. Improvement. Significant improvement. Then build on that in 2019.
If not, then he is a dead man walking. Like Angelo and Emery he won't get another shot at a GM job in this league. It's over.
Why should he?
Why is Pace just getting a free pass for the mess he created?
You raise a fair point, MOTM, and the media is beginning to ask similar questions.
I’m a realist so I know it’s very unlikely McCaskey will fire Pace just yet. He’s too cheap to pay 2 GMs and 2 HCs at the same time. But you’re right—based on objective measures there’s no way Pace’s job should be “safe”.
His record is the same as Fox’s and worse than Emery’s.
