do all non-linemen GMs say that? Did Pace actually say this?
No, did I say they did? Fans sure as hell do say that.
Bears have a long history of treating oline as unimportant. I know you've noticed the problem. Obviously there's something with the Bears organization that says this and too many fans embrace it and the staff has bowed down to it through many GMs/HCs. It's not a thing across the NFL, it's a Bears thing.
While the new GM may have been one of those nobodies passed off as doing something to fix the oline I'm sure his career at the position has him knowing it is important to protect the QB.
Who are all great ones at oline that Pace got? He ignored a good oline draft to get Smith and Mack. He got a center who can't play center. He re-signed Leno and Massie because he put himself in a hole by passing on the good oline draft to wait for a draft and FA period that had no options.
What he says doesn't matter, what he did or failed to do is what matters. He also said he was going to bring the Bears into the modern NFL and get us an offense. That wasn't how it played out.