Ryan Pace has found a new home.
The former Chicago Bears general manager is joining the Atlanta Falcons as a senior personnel executive, the team announced on February 24. Pace will work in scouting alongside Ruston Webster and another ex-Bears GM, Phil Emery.
Pace will be reunited with current Falcons GM Terry Fontenot, who he worked with for 13 years while the two were with the New Orleans Saints. Pace is also familiar and has worked with several members of the current Falcons coaching staff, including offensive coordinator Dave Ragone (ex-Bears quarterbacks coach) QBs coach Charles London (former Bears running backs coach) and outside linebackers coach Ted Monachino (he held the same title in Chicago).
Shortly after the Falcons made the hiring of Pace public, the Bears made an announcement of their own, with their official Twitter PR account revealing they had added Matt Feinstein as director of football administration.
We have hired Matt Feinstein as our director of football administration.
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Pace Isn’t Remembered Fondly for His Tenure in Chicago
A first-time GM when the Bears hired him in 2015, pace amassed a record of 48-65 in the regular season, and his teams went 0-2 in the postseason. Team chairman George McCaskey and company parted ways with him after seven years and hired former Kansas City Chiefs executive director of player personnel Ryan Poles to fill his shoes. Pace was named NFL Executive of the Year in 2018 after the Bears went 12-4, but that was the only winning season in his tenure.
“I want to thank the Bears organization, especially Mrs. Virginia McCaskey, George H. McCaskey and Ted Phillips, for the last seven years,” Pace said in a statement released through the team on Twitter.
“This is a first-class organization and my family and I enjoyed our time in Chicago. Today’s news is the tough part of our business, but I am proud to have poured absolutely everything into making the Chicago Bears a better football team every single day since first stepping foot into Halas Hall.”
“Our family is from Illinois, went to college in Illinois and as Bears fans for life, we are proud to say that we are confident the future is bright for this team going forward,” Pace added.
Statement from Ryan Pace:
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Bears Also Add Director of Football Administration
Feinstein will fill the shoes of Joey Laine after spending the previous seven years working as a member of the NFL’s management council. Feinstein was promoted to the league’s director of labor operations in January, and now, he’ll add director of football administration for the Bears to his resumé.
Laine had been with Chicago for seven seasons, but left when Pace, former head coach Matt Nagy and nearly all of Nagy’s staff were fired at season’s end. His primary responsibility was negotiating contracts
Feinstein got his start in analytics and player personnel, and his addition signals a new emphasis on analytics, as he joins recent hire Harrison Freid, who Poles just brought on as the team’s new director of research and analysis.
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Ex-Bears GM Ryan Pace Gets New Job in NFC Working With Familiar Face