What’s New

In fact, the Bears have a lot to lose on Sunday, most notably a chance to advance in the playoffs. However, beyond the game, this team, key members of the organization have a lot to lose — specifically their jobs.

Look, it’s great the Bears are playing a meaningful football game in January, but let’s not lose sight of the reality, which is they backed into this scenario. After starting 5-1 and being all but assured a playoff berth statistically, they lost six straight and needed the Los Angeles Rams to beat the Arizona Cardinals in Week 17 to get in because they couldn’t handle their own business.

That business they failed to handle, of course, was the Green Bay Packers who throttled them at Soldier Field. It was important because it was the first quality opponent (particularly defense) the team had played in weeks. After trouncing the bottom of the barrel (Houston Texans, Minnesota Vikings, and Jacksonville Jaguars) the offense was brought back down to earth with a impotent performance against the Pack.

So why is Sunday’s game important? Well, consider if they put forward a similar offensive performance. In that scenario, any goodwill the late season offensive surge built up would be gone. It would be further validation the offensive success was more fool’s gold. While George McCaskey might have been encouraged by that mini winning streak, the reality will be that they will have lost two consecutive games to quality opponents.

Prior to that, you’d have to go back to their first game against the Packers to find another quality opponent against which to evaluate this offense — and guess what — they bombed there too. So if you are looking at the season objectively, you’d have four good offensive performances (including the loss to the Detroit Lions) sandwiched in between three putrid performances against legitimate defenses.

If that happens, and George McCaskey is being honest with himself, he has to view this season as a failure, and a reality check that this team is closer to mediocrity than they are to the 12-4 anomaly of 2018.

While that might seem harsh, it should serve as a reminder of exactly how big of a mistake Pace made, and why he should be motivated to make it right.

According to a recent report, he may get the chance as Watson is mulling the possibility of requesting a trade. This report follows a recently deleted tweet from Watson in which he made a statement to the effect of “the more things change the more they stay the same” which was widely interpreted as a reaction to the news that the Texans were going to hire Nick Caserio as their general manager, which would further empower Jack Easterby.

If true, and he requests a trade, Pace must do whatever he can (within reason obviously) to make this trade. While Pace has long been criticized for trading away picks, he did so for an unknown quarterback with one year of starting experience in college. If you have a chance to obtain a proven franchise quarterback, you willingly part with those picks again.

Fans may point to the situation in Houston as a cautionary tale, since they have performed poorly this year even with Watson, due to a lack of talent around him. Those fans will caution that trading away picks will preclude the Bears from building around Watson in the same way the Texans failed.

However, the Bears have pieces on their defense they could trade for picks. Considering how much they are paying the defense, and the way in which they have underperformed this year, perhaps it’s time to rebalance the roster and reallocate some of that spending to the offense. Furthermore, the team has accumulated quite a few compensatory picks recently, that can be used to fill out the roster. Finally, if the Bears lose Champ Kelly, who appears likely to be hired away as another team’s general manager, they will receive two additional third-round compensatory picks.

In other words, trading away future picks for a proven franchise quarterback does not have to be the death-knell it is being made out to be if you make smart decisions with the resources you have. With that in mind, it is imperative Pace makes a move to bring Watson to Chicago and all will be forgiven.