The Ryan Pace Bracket Challenge: Draft #3 vs #6

It’s day five of the Pace Bracket Challenge, and it’s time to move back over to the draft. Today it’s the battle of the Eddies and the battle of the wide receivers. Before getting in on the details, you can get caught up here:

Early results suggest that fans care about quarterbacks (Fields won 92% of his head-to-head votes, signing Mike Glennon took home 76%, while drafting Trubisky managed 75%) and Khalil Mack sack attacks (91%).

To review the rules for everyone, each day features a head-to-head matchup of two of Ryan Pace’s fan-favorite moves and two of his most disdained moves. Fans should weigh whichever factors they want in the vote, as this is about having fun in the offseason and not a complicated statistical analysis of outcomes (unless doing that analysis is how you have fun).

Make sure to register your voice in the comments below, campaigning for your (unfavorites).

Best

#3: Drafting Eddie Goldman - the second pick that Ryan Pace ever made for Chicago, Goldman has been a force to be reckoned with on the center of the defensive line, and while playing 67 games he has managed 20 quarterback hits.

#6: Drafting Eddie Jackson - Jackson would not have been available in the fourth round if not for an injury in college, and while his 2020 campaign was nothing special, he had back-to-back Pro Bowl seasons before that, and he was the first 1st-Team All-Pro safety the Bears had in far too long. Not bad for a guy taken out of the Top 100.

Worst

#3: Kevin White - White’s injury history is probably not Pace’s fault (unless you want to blame Glennon for White’s last injury in Chicago, but then we might as well blame the butterfly flying in Brazil the prior day). However, even if White had never been injured, he was always more of a gym shorts standout than a finished player, he only had one year of production, and he was a wide receiver taken in the top 10 without the credentials to back up such a reach, drafted by a team that was trying to retool its defense.

#6: Riley Ridley - It’s tough to call a fourth-round pick of any kind a bust, but there are special circumstances that merit questioning the selection of Ridley. Ridley has not even played 150 snaps on offense despite having two years on the team, and that’s bad for any player. It’s worse for a player who—regardless of the circumstances—was the second overall pick made by the team. Pace needed to find at least a contributor of some kind in the pick-poor 2019 draft, and Ridley has been a near-total miss.

Let’s vote! Plus, don’t forget to share opinions and arguments in the comments.