Rosenbloom: Hey Bears, is Ryan Pace still in charge?

Rosenbloom: Hey Bears, is Ryan Pace still in charge?

I've been on vacation for a week and was expecting Bears titular general manager Ryan Pace to surface to explain this mess and what it means going forward.

But no. He didn’t he didn’t come up for air. Publicly, at least. He didn’t act like a GM who’s in charge might act, and perhaps he’s not. Maybe John Fox told him to stay hidden. Maybe the head coach actually is in charge of football operations.

After all, Fox is the only one we’ve heard from, and yeesh, has he ever sounded like a goof at times.

Whatever happens with injuries and idiot players getting popped for performance-enhancing drugs, here was Fox at his embarrassing worst:

When asked why the Bears didn’t run more against the Giants, Fox said the Giants had eight men in the box. When then asked why he didn’t pass more, Fox said receivers were covered. Good game plan. Good adjustments. Good talk.

Can you believe the Bears are paying this guy?

Something has to change, or at least be answered for, and in theory the titular GM is the guy who can make those changes or provide those answers, although George McCaskey, the alleged driver of ownership’s McClown car, could ask mom if she’s “pissed off’’ and maybe that would clear the tracks of this train wreck.

Short of that, Pace was the person to find to answer for refusing to draft a quarterback, the inability to stock the roster with quality depth, the head coach’s standing after a year of painful regression, the head coach’s standing after choosing an ineffective offensive coordinator, the decision to dump such productive players as Martellus Bennett and Matt Slauson, and pages of injuries that might make you wonder about the team’s sports science department or practice and training methods.

So, because I’m a pleaser, not a teaser, I checked around the city while on a week’s vacation to see if I could find Pace.

I went to O’Hare to pick up my daughter on Tuesday, but I did not see him in United’s baggage claim walking out of the concourse or, closer to what I was expecting, waiting there holding a sign with somone’s name on it.

During a trip to Portillo’s, the new one that opened on Lake-Cook Road in Deerfield, the woman taking my order said she had not seen him, but did I want hot or sweet peppers on that beef sandwich?

On Wednesday, the woman working the register at Target didn’t know who Pace was, and our waitress at Wildberry brought us more coffee and a box for the leftover Oreo S’Mores pancakes (to die for, people).

Thursday, Pace was not at our Thanksgiving dinner, nor was he at the Little Goat Diner on West Randolph Street on Friday evening, which is surprising when you consider the way the whole goat thing would fit him these days if, I don’t know, such a thing as a Bears GM in fact existed.

One last shot came Saturday, but Pace was not at Mio Caro, a restaurant on Wilson that apparently is BYOGM.

So, maybe he doesn’t really exist. Maybe he was just a hologram the Bears dragged out because a real-life GM like Phil Emery was too much of a joke.

I didn’t ask around Halas Hall because if such a person as this Pace character existed, he would’ve surfaced there and addressed the disastrous state of the franchise and how he planned to change it, starting with the coach’s future, the quarterback’s future, everybody’s future.

But no. No dice. No Pace, presuming he actually exists as a carbon-based life form.

If only this supposed Pace person were as good at making a football roster as he is at playing hide-and-seek.