Where Ryan Pace Failed the Most This Year

Ryan Pace has to get credit for great success with acquiring the draft pick needed to select Justin Fields but his failure at another important position has had far-reaching consequences.

The 45-30 loss by the Bears at Green Bay Sunday provided an obvious moment of truth for coach Matt Nagy as with nine losses they will now be his first losing team.

A bottom line bunch like the Bears ownership would really need to twist things to find so-called "progress" in what has happened on the coaching side this season. And remember, progress is the element George McCaskey said they needed to see this year.

However, the loss also underscored the greatest failure this season of general manager Ryan Pace. Actually, one play in particular did it, but the overall game did as well.

When the powers that be at Halas Hall look at Pace's performance this year, it's difficult to get past the fact he maneuvered to bring in Justin Fields.

However, one mistake Pace can't dodge is his greatest for this season and it's what he did—or didn't do—at cornerback.

The faith Pace had in his own late-round draft picks at cornerback proved a terrible miscalculation or at best a premature assessment of their development.

Now It's Back to Kindle Vildor 

It's always possible Kindle Vildor will turn into a viable NFL cornerback but he struggled too much to indicate he's there before he finally got benched. At slot cornerback, Duke Shelley seemed to make small progress in the final weeks before the hamstring injury which landed him on injured reserve.

Either way, it was apparent neither was ready to be the full-time starter at their positions and opponents picked on them all year long.

Matt Nagy on Monday defended the team's reliance on Vildor, who is in his second year.

"We know that being a young guy coming into that position, that there's going to be times like anybody that, especially at corner, where you're gonna get beat and how do you react to that?" Nagy said. "I thought that throughout most of the season, he's done pretty well. 

"And then he had the game where he ended up having some issues there, and, you know, we started playing Artie (Burns) more. But that's part of growth for him. And so we understand that. We know that."

Growth mistakes at quarterback can be tolerated when the talent is so obvious like with Fields. Mistakes at cornerback are not so easily digestible. 

Jaylon Johnson had the obvious talent right away and they could afford to take a chance with him last year. Not so with Vildor or Shelley. There's a reason they didn't get drafted until the final day. 

Nagy expressed hope Vildor might still be of use this season, because he was benched after giving up the game-deciding pass at the end of the loss to Baltimore.

"So I think that again, what I like about Kindle is that he's out there practicing every day," Nagy said. "He's working hard and he hasn't gone into the tank or anything like that. He's staying positive and he's working hard every day in practice. So he's going to continue to grow."

This would be helpful because the Bears may need to go back to Vildor now with Xavier Crawford in the concussion protocol. 

Slot Cornerback a Huge Issue

How they shuffle the secondary without both of their top two slot cornerbacks remains to be seen, because Vildor hasn't really played slot and current left cornerback starter Artie Burns isn't one, either.

It might fall in the lap of many, like using Jaylon Johnson and/or Eddie Jackson in this role at times. Until now they could have even thrown all-purpose DeAndre Houston-Carson into that position but now he has a broken forearm and is going on IR. Using multiple players at positions in secondary positions is an invitation to communication breakdowns and big plays by the offense.

Regardless, they are short on cornerbacks and short on talent overall at the position. They have been short since training camp started and Pace failed to bring in viable candidates to replace inexperienced Vildor and Shelley in case they failed.

This is by far his most grave error this season. It trumps even the debacle at tackle, as they drafted Teven Jenkins after he had back trouble but expected him to start immediately on the left side where he had less experience. The back injury they claimed was a new one then occurred but Pace had at least covered this situation by signing Elijah Wilkinson and by drafting Larry Borom. Then he did a spectacular job in GM scrambling mode by locating a veteran with something left in Jason Peters.

Not enough was done for insurance plans at cornerback. It wasn't even close In fact, nothing was. 

Bad cornerback play can bring a team down faster than problems at any position except possibly quarterback, and Pace had no answer for this.

Which takes us back to why Sunday night had to underscore Pace's failure at this position so completely. 

The Pick-6 by Rasul Douglas  

Besides the total embarrassment of letting Aaron Rodgers dominate them for a half again, there was the pick-6 by Packers cornerback Rasul Douglas. Fields pointed out Douglas jumped the route, as if that was an unsound risk to take.

The Bears could use a route jumper right about now themselves. They have one interception from their cornerbacks this year. They had one for all of last year, too.

The reason Douglas' pick-6 makes this even more embarrassing is that he now has three this season, including two pick-6s in two weeks. He didn't even sign with the Packers until Oct. 6. 

In eight games with the Packers, Douglas has more interceptions than all of the Bears cornerbacks had for the last two seasons combined.

And making matters even more embarrassing, Pace could have signed Douglas. A former Philadelphia Eagle, Douglas was cut by the Raiders and Texans during the preseason. Douglas was right there all along to be signed and the Packers didn't do it until October, and then gave him only $990,000. 

Meanwhile, the Bears plug the position with players who are not as good as the struggling players they replace.

Pace has left this position dangerously void of talent after drafting Johnson, who has been used incorrectly all year as a lockdown guy covering man to man all over the field.

Even if it wasn't Douglas, there are numerous other players Pace could have found to back up at cornerback beyond Burns, who was coming off losing his job in Pittsburgh and an ACL tear, or Crawford, who was a street free agent acquisition last year.

The Bears never found an answer for cutting Kyle Fuller, and never fortified a position  where failure can and will get teams beat faster than any other on defense.

The Bears have seen evidence of this while giving up 29 points or more six times this season. For that they can thank Pace.

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