Chicago Bears: Trade for Carson Wentz smells of desperation

If the Chicago Bears’ pursuit of a Carson Wentz trade is as hot as reports indicate, it shows how truly desperate Ryan Pace and the team are at quarterback.

Now that we have a new Super Bowl champion, we look at the offseason and the moves teams like the Chicago Bears make. The news and rumors already started, with longtime Detroit Lions’ Matthew Stafford and Los Angeles Rams’ quarterbacks involved in a blockbuster trade.

Then there is the “Will it happen or not” drama involving Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson. The Texans continue to insist they aren’t trading the talented signal-caller but with his dissatisfaction with the team and the haul he’ll bring to the new general manager and head coach, Houston likely relents.

The Bears reportedly were involved in both Stafford and Watson. They were one of the teams that made an offer for Stafford but Detroit was unwilling to trade him within the division. Also, general manager Ryan Pace apparently called the Texans to inquire on Watson.

After losing out on Stafford, Pace apparently feels that the price tag for Watson is too much for him to pay. The rumor mill now has him pursuing Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz.

Chicago Bears are desperate at quarterback

After a 2018 season in which they went 12-4, things haven’t gone too well for the Bears. They finished 8-8 the last two seasons and the offense has been absolutely bad. In fact, the 2018 season appears to be the outlier and the losing seasons are the rule for his tenure. He’s only had one season in which the Bears won more than they lost.

There are multiple problems to deal with but the biggest problem is at quarterback. Without the proper leader on offense, the unit cannot advance.

Pace now has to admit that the Mitch Trubisky experiment was a failure. Despite having everyone at Halas Hall tell us that Trubisky got better each season, he went out and performed the same way — missing wide-open receivers, making the wrong decisions, showing bad technique, and forcing passes into double and triple teams, etc.

Yes, part of the problem was the offensive line but the coaching staff found a good combination in the last quarter of the season and the unit performed well. Even with the improved line play, Trubisky continued to make the same mistakes. He did well against the weak defenses but when he went up against better defenses he struggled.

Because of that, Pace’s seat got hot. Many expected him to see the firing squad at the end of the season but team owner George McCaskey decided to give him (as well as head coach Matt Nagy) one more chance. That means Pace is in a “win now or be gone” situation.

Due to his position, Pace cannot go through the draft to look for a quarterback. He needs an established quarterback who can step in now and get the job done.

Is Ryan Pace the man to make that decision, however?

Pace has done a good job at finding free agents and prospects in the draft who stepped in and helped the team, except at quarterback. This is his list of quarterbacks he acquired since he got to Chicago: David Fales, Brian Hoyer, Matt Barkley, Mike Glennon, Trubisky, Chase Daniel, Tyler Bray and Nick Foles.

Notice that of those quarterbacks, only Trubisky was drafted. That happened, despite Pace saying he’d draft a quarterback in every draft to try to help the offense. What actually happened was Pace signing a bunch of quarterbacks who couldn’t challenge Trubisky, the one basket he put all of his eggs in.

With all of those quarterbacks on his resume, why did McCaskey feel Pace was the right guy to hit on the quarterback now? He’s missed on an incredible eight choices now, but the ninth is the charm?

Now we see that Pace might want to spend draft capital and a couple of players on a reclamation project. Yes, in 2017 Wentz was on his way to winning the NFL MVP before a torn ACL ended his season. Since then, though, he has a 17-21-1 record. This season he was downright horrible.

He was 3-8-1 as a starter and had 16 touchdown passes and 15 interceptions. The interceptions led the NFL. In fact, take out the 2017 season and Wentz owns a record of 24-30-1 and has 80 touchdowns against 43 interceptions. A 2:1 touchdown-to-interception rate is average. Apart from 2017, his is 1.86:1. Again, the successful season is the outlier instead of the rule.

This is the same move Pace made before the 2020 season. He traded a fourth-round pick to the Jacksonville Jaguars for Nick Foles. Foles took over for Wentz after the injury and led the Eagles to a Super Bowl Victory, outdueling Tom Brady.

Foles struggled with bad play and injuries since then. That continued with Chicago. He could not get the offense going then suffered an injury at the end of the game in Week 10 and we never saw from him again.

Now Pace wants to repeat the move with Wentz, hoping that this time it’ll work. When he acquired Foles, many felt he was too expensive. Acquiring Wentz will be even more expensive. He wants to swing for the fences but feels Watson is too high a price to pay. Again, what have we seen in Pace’s moves that show he’s the man to make the right decision?

Pace is so desperate to finally find his quarterback that he’s willing to take a chance on someone like Wentz. If he misses this choice again, the Bears will be bad for years to come.