View from the Moon: Bears make statement in taking tight end while passing on defensive backs

Trying to sort through some Halas Hall draft mysteries…. well, one big one, anyway.

Now that it's all done: Were GM Ryan Pace and the personnel staff really in phase with John Fox and the coaching staff? Because that really is the franchise-grade question and one with the broadest possible ramifications.

The gut feeling is, yes. That's really based just on watching the two of them together Saturday during the post-draft debriefing. If there was tension, frustration or a fracture in the relationship, the two were as good at masking it as they were concealing their draft plans.

Which they could be. Maybe reading John Fox's face is no easier than Jay Cutler's. They wouldn't be the first to put up a fraud façade or public face.

But regardless of any taffy pulls or disagreements that may have played out during the draft, the jokes, asides and other responses to queries suggested otherwise. It wasn't just what they said; it was how they said it.

"How would you grade your draft?" the pair was asked.

"I'll tell you in three years," Pace said.

"I'm sure we'll get some 'input," Fox said, laughing, for a media corps that will provide more than a little of that "input."

This was their third draft together. Fox has worked with myriad personnel guys and draft rooms, so how has Pace changed? Gotten bossier?

"He's been the same guy," Fox said. "We talk about that in this building, whether that be players, coaches or personnel people. I think he has done a terrific job and he's got great people skills. You listen, but then you have to go with your gut, too… . After three years, every year you have convictions on players and everyone kind of keeps track of that. We have been in this spot three straight years and we've even been in this spot with high picks. I think he's done a terrific job."

Beneath all of the analyses of whether Mitch Trubisky is really the franchise quarterback the Bears have sought since Jim McMahon couldn't stay healthy 30 years ago, or whether lesser-fete'd college programs (Ashland, Kutztown, North Carolina A&T) will produced NFL-grade talent for the Bears, lurks the deeper and arguably more significant assessment of what the 2017 draft means for the futures of Pace and Fox, jointly and individually.

The vulnerabilities are obvious; a combined 9-23 record in their two Bears seasons puts a lot of jobs over a "vulnerable" trap door in an organization that has never retained a coach after three straight losing seasons – even if the last thing Chairman George McCaskey wants on his watch is a situation in such steep decline that it even continues to lose even after a regime change, as it did after three-season-losers Jim Dooley, Abe Gibron and Dave Wannstedt.

Irrespective of specific 2017 draft choices, the surest course toward cataclysm would be a divide between coach and GM, which some want to believe has begun, fueled if by nothing else but Chris Mortensen's report Thursday that Fox only found out about the decision to pursue and make the Trubisky deal a short time before Pace made it. Mort walked back from the claim, and Pace ripped it as "so false" later on Friday.

Pace was adamant that he and Fox were in lock step on the move for a quarterback who ideally doesn't see the field a lot this season. As a first-rounder the Bears do have him for as much as five years if they elect to pick up the option for the fifth year of his rookie contract.

Would Fox have wanted a defensive force? Probably. But he went 3-13 last season in no small part because he had to use three different quarterbacks and two of them were bad.

"I think the quarterback position was obviously a need position as well," Fox said. "That became pretty clear as we went out in free agency and got Mike Glennon. I think you're always trying to add depth at every position.

"Unlike what some people think, quarterback is key, too. If you look back at a year ago, we went through three quarterbacks, due to injuries, so I think building depth is really important. I think Mitch is a quality, quality player. I think if you did research and we need to do that, I'm going to say that a lot of people had him ranked very high, and us no different."

[MORE BEARS DRAFT COVERAGE: Trust the tape: Bears feel confident in Division II draft picks Adam Shaheen, Jordan Morgan]

One cynical view making some rounds is that Pace has set Fox up to fail specifically by not giving him defensive help that would translate into win-now prospects for a coach who obviously needs to. But that doesn't quite square somehow.

Pace and the draft powers were promising Fox a real shot at something even better than a quarterback. All they needed was for Cleveland to opt for Trubisky, which was in discussion over in Ohio until not long before the draft. Then the Bears, who'd talked over scenarios with San Francisco GM John Lynch over recent weeks, would have made that trade, but for Myles Garrett.

The Bears at No. 3 had tabbed three possible options for themselves, but with every intention of trading up unless the 49ers were blown away by a trade offer the Bears couldn't match.

"I would say there were probably two of the three that we'd be willing to go up for," Pace said, with a sly smile but without naming Garrett.

Which makes it reasonable to conclude that Fox knew the GM would get him the projected best edge rusher in the draft, unless their projected best quarterback was there. Which is what happened.

"We knew [Trubisky], obviously, was our top quarterback," Pace said. "At one point in time – you don't know what to believe – but up until the last second, there was speculation that Mitch could go 1. So then there's even talks: 'Wow, if he goes 1, and Myles goes to 2, what are we going to do?'

"And so all these scenarios are being played out. And there's just so many of them. And we talk them all out. But the idea of 'If Mitch is there at 2, and it's realistic for us to go get him,' that was something we discussed."

The Bears were expected to prioritize the secondary, even as high as LSU's Jamal Adams in some first-round scenarios. They didn't get draft help for one of the poorest takeaway secondaries in NFL history until well into the fourth round. Was Pace undercutting his defense-based head coach and a staff boasting some of the top mentors in their areas?

Really?

Pace guaranteed $20 million of Bears money to cornerbacks Prince Amukamara ($7 million) and Marcus Cooper ($8 million) and safety Quintin Demps ($5 million). To have then used a high pick for a defensive back could conceivably have had McCaskey calling over and asking just exactly how Pace figured he needed to give his coaches a viable secondary. In the final analysis, Pace's view of upgrading the secondary was more than draft-centric.

"We added a lot in free agency, so that was the plan," Pace said. "We signed three corners in free agency and a safety and now we just drafted a safety. Part of our free agency plan was to attack the secondary and we accomplished it there. And that kind of allowed us to draft best player available when this moment came."

If Fox had a problem with any of that, it was not apparent Saturday night after their third draft together.

Source: www.bing.com