(670 The Score) Score evening host and Bet Sweats host Joe Ostrowski was an early critic of Bears general manager Ryan Pace, raising concerns about Chicago’s offense foreshadowing struggles even amid in the organization’s breakout 2018 season. And as some thought the Bears’ 8-8 season of 2019 was a bump in the road, Ostrowski viewed it as a sign of what was to come.
In this case, it’s a 5-7 record for the Bears as they prepare to host the Texans on Sunday. Those Texans are led by star quarterback Deshaun Watson, whom Pace eschewed in the evaluation process leading up to the 2017 NFL Draft, where the Bears traded up to No. 2 overall to select Mitchell Trubisky.
While it’s the Trubisky pick that will forever haunt Pace, that’s not what Ostrowski has been most critical about. Instead, it has been Pace’s processes that he has taken issue with – the overlooking of Watson by not even interviewing him, the trading away of draft assets again and again, the misidentification of which positions are most important and the habit of prioritizing defense over offense in today’s pass-heavy, high-scoring era.
That all led to Ostrowski unloading on Pace on the Laurence Holmes Show on Friday afternoon.
“We don’t even have to go into the misses and what he’s done in free agency,” Ostrowski said. “Free agency is what it is. There are going to be some hits. There are going to be some misses. That’s for every team. I’ll give him a pass on some of that.
“You look forward, the amount of money that he’s put into the defensive side of the ball in 2020, it’s like he’s not even watching the same game that we’re all watching. He walked in saying, ‘I’m going to draft a quarterback every single year. Yeah, that’s what you should do if you don’t have that position figured out. It’s so important. You got to draft one every year.’ He’s drafted one. He’s drafted one. We can push the Trubisky thing to the side for a minute. We can push the misses in free agency. We can do that. If you just look at six years, a record of 39-53, he’s going to have one winning season – because I don’t think they’re going 9-7 here – so one winning season in six years, he’s missed on three quarterbacks. I’m just going off what he was saying. They were fired up about Mike Glennon and they gave him a lot of money. I’m just following Nick Foles here. There were options for a couple million dollars that they could’ve had if they thought there was nobody worth anything, but he decided to trade another draft pick and give a lot of money to Nick Foles. So I’m going to say it’s three misses. And there’s nothing worse than the guy that can’t wait to come at you and say that he didn’t hire John Fox anyways so it shouldn’t go on his record. As JJ (Stankevitz of NBC Sports Chicago) just chronicled, he’s been here for half of his tenure. John Fox goes on his record, and he could’ve moved on earlier if he wasn’t his guy, if he wasn’t believing in that. So now you have two bad head coaches there. Again, one drafted quarterback. (Pace) is under contract for one more year and has zero playoff victories.”
Ostrowski also criticized Pace’s penchant for giving up future picks to trade up in the NFL Draft to select a player he zeroed in on.
“In this era, everything we know about running backs and how replaceable most of them are, he traded up for David Montgomery,” Ostrowski said. “He can not wait to give you assets – whatever you want, here you go. The tunnel vision he has in drafts – ‘I got to have Anthony Miller, he’s the only guy, I’m going to move up.” It’s year three. There’s another bust on his record.
Add him to the list. Mitchell Trubisky.”
“The message that he’s sending to us now in 2020 is not only that he had to have Mitchell Trubisky, it’s that that guy on Houston who’s going to have to be Superman just to win even against the Bears because he has nothing to work with, that guy, I needed to move up to 2 so I don’t get stuck with him. That was his evaluation of the quarterback position. Just as average fans, you saw what (Watson) accomplished.
“He has no understanding of what’s going on in the league right now.”