CHICAGO _ As the Saints and Rams play for the NFC championship Sunday in New Orleans, Bears general manager Ryan Pace will continue thinking long and hard about how he can get his team on that stage next winter.
The Bears followed a 12-4 regular season with a galling one-point playoff loss to the Eagles. And listening to Pace and coach Matt Nagy on Monday at Halas Hall, it quickly became obvious that neither was in the mood _ at least not yet _ to celebrate a surprising division championship.
"Honestly," Pace said, "an abrupt end to the season is painful. It's painful because we set our goals high. We're proud of what we accomplished. But we're not satisfied."
Nagy was still visibly agitated when talking about the loss to the Eagles. He called it "sickening" to have to do dozens of exit interviews with players when he knew his team should still be playing.
Sure, Nagy acknowledged, he did watch the divisional round of the playoffs. And he'll almost certainly tune in to the conference title games.
"I've got that junkie in me that wants to watch it," Nagy said. "You get better doing that. It almost makes you hurt more when you watch them when you're away from them.
"We're all competitors and in the end we all want to be playing three more weeks down the road."
Translation: The Bears are realistically eyeing a run to Super Bowl LIV in South Florida in February 2020. This year's success was promising but just a starting point.
So how can the Bears get from here to there? It will take another calculated and productive offseason of roster tweaks to fill obvious needs. They must focus on making improvements that will propel them forward. With that in mind, Pace and Nagy will continue collaborating on a long list of personnel wants and needs. Within that, they'll have to discuss the risks and rewards of potentially pursuing some big names for the 2019 Bears.
Here's a deeper look at three players who could wear the navy and orange next season. (Unless they don't.)
