It’s difficult to imagine Bears general manager Ryan Pace walking into chairman George McCaskey’s office again any time soon and sticking his neck out for a player.
Pace and the rest of the organization will feel the sting for a while after defensive end Ray McDonald, dumped in December by the 49ers for a “pattern of poor behavior,” was arrested Monday morning on charges of domestic violence and child endangerment.
Leave it to the Bears to divert the spotlight from Tom Brady and his deflated footballs. Once again, domestic violence is front and center for the NFL, and the Bears are associated with it even though they wasted little time in terminating McDonald’s contract.
It’s one thing to swing and miss on a talent evaluation. It’s an entirely different thing to bring in a player with a checkered past and see him get arrested 62 days later. In retrospect, Pace should realize it was a bad time for the Bears to gamble on McDonald.
In March, McDonald paid his own way to visit Halas Hall for a chance to assure those in charge that he isn’t a serial miscreant. Whatever McDonald was selling, the Bears bought, and that’s on them.
At the behest of the coaching staff, particularly defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, Pace and ultimately McCaskey signed off on the addition of McDonald to a one-year contract that didn’t cost them a penny. Right now, the Bears would probably prefer to have a little salary-cap hit than be linked to domestic violence. It will be a while before people forget McCaskey’s tale about his telephone conversation with McDonald’s parents before the signing. Good grief.
The Bears knew it was a delicate and potentially combustible move and they had planned to break news of the signing at the owners meeting in Phoenix with Pace sitting down with reporters to explain how the organization had carefully considered the signing of McDonald. But word leaked out and Pace and McCaskey spent part of their day explaining and ultimately endorsing the move.
You want a GM who is willing to take risks, but this one was unnecessary. Pace forgot where he was and what he was working with. He was brought in to overhaul a personnel mess that has put more distance between the Bears and the rest of the NFC North for some time, and he has taken bold steps in retooling the front office and scouting department.
He needed to remember the Bears were a 5-11 wreck that was bombed for 31 or more points in seven games a year ago. McDonald, 30, has never been to a Pro Bowl and he’s a high-mileage player. Yes, he would have been prepared to go from day one, but McDonald wasn’t the difference between the Bears being a playoff team or not. Far from it.
Now the Bears appear thin at defensive end, although they have some flexibility with veterans Jarvis Jenkins and Jeremiah Ratliff, assuming rookie second-round pick Eddie Goldman is ready to go at nose tackle.
The McDonald experiment didn’t cost the Bears any money. But he did plenty of damage.
The greatest fallout for Pace could come when a gamble might actually mean adding a difference-maker to a roster positioned to compete. The next time he wants a player who isn’t a choir boy, will he be willing to take the risk? Will he even be allowed to stick his neck out?