Durkin: Opportunity Has Arrived For Bears' Ryan Pace
By Dan Durkin--
(CBS) Much like the prospects he's spent countless hours evaluating, first-year Bears general manager Ryan Pace has been preparing for this night his entire career. He parlayed a six-month internship with the Saints into a 14-year career in their front office, then vaulted to the top post in Chicago.
Now, he's set to embark on a series of firsts that could make or break the short-term future of a team in desperate need of a new way.
"Before, you're making recommendations," Pace said of his time in the Saints' draft room. "But when the draft starts, you can sit back and cross your arms. It's different when you're the guy making those choices, but it's a collaborative effort. I'm confident. The confidence comes with the preparation and the time we've put into this."
The time put into the draft process resulted in overnights at the office, but the end result is a draft board with 170 prospects on it. To put that in context, 256 players will be selected. As it stands, only six of them will become members of the Chicago Bears. Nonetheless, it's all about proper due diligence and planning for any and every possible scenario that may arise.
The Bears have the seventh overall selection, their highest since 2005. Pace has put out feelers to teams both ahead of and behind the Bears in the draft order to gauge what the trade market is. If they were to stay put, he has distilled down the list of targets.
"If we stay at seven, there's seven players we've identified that we feel really really good about," Pace said. "I know there's going to be a player that we can select that's going to be there that we feel really good about, that we're excited about. But, if the right opportunity is there for us to go back a little bit, we kind of have established clouds at different points in the draft to know that if we go back to this point, this is the group of players we're talking about. If we go back to this point, this is the group of players we're talking about. So all those scenarios and discussions have been going on at this point."
Given the state of the Bears' roster and the gap that exists between them and the Green Bay Packers, this is a crucial moment for Pace and the franchise. He must live up to the words he set forth during his introductory press conference, otherwise it will be everything Bears fans have already heard before. He has an opportunity to correct the course starting Thursday night, and he recognizes it.
"When you're picking in the top 10, you're hoping, you're confident that you're going to get an impact player that's going to get this franchise rolling," Pace said. "When I think about it, you look back at any successful Super Bowl team, and there's a draft that took place that kind of set the foundation for that team. I don't want to talk about New Orleans too much, but I think the 2006 draft propelled them to the 2009 Super Bowl. So that's your goal going into this, is that this draft here sets us up for a lot of success to come."
That 2006 Saints team had a fresh start, much like the Bears. They brought in a new coach, but they also brought in a franchise quarterback in Drew Brees. They then followed up with a draft class highlighted by Reggie Bush, Jahri Evans and Marques Colston, three players who combined to appear in 46 games and scored 17 touchdowns as rookies. That's the type of productivity the Bears must expect from this draft class and beyond.
Pace defied the odds to get to this point. Now, he must use them to his advantage to change the Bears' fortune.
Dan Durkin covers the Bears for CBSChicago.com and is a frequent contributor to 670 The Score. Follow him on Twitter at @djdurkin.
