Fire Matt Eberflus? No Time Like the Present
The Bears organization does not fire head coaches midseason as a rule. It’s an understandable directive for a lot of reasons. First and foremost, the pool of available coaches is full of the ones who weren’t good enough to be hired by any other team. You can double down when it comes to coordinators. Further, promoting from the existing group of assistant coaches isn’t going to change things very much, but that’s a bad idea anyway. I’ll get to that in a second, but it’s time to dismiss head coach Matt Eberflus, and if the organization wants to stop its cycle of replacing its entire staff in Year 2 of its franchise quarterback’s contract, it must be done no later than tomorrow morning.
The Bears kept John Fox and then drafted Mitchell Trubisky.
The Bears kept Matt Nagy and then drafted Justin Fields.
The Bears kept Matt Eberflus and then drafted Caleb Williams.
No one improves. No one changes. People make the same mistakes over and over again.
— Walker Carey (@walkerRcarey) November 3, 2024
Before I go any further, may I remind you that Bill Belichick is available. The Bears could have the first shot at him if they move swiftly. As far as his staff, I don’t care who he brings. A combination of Tom Brady, Denis Leary, and Matt Damon is perfectly fine on an interim basis. That’s a joke, but so was Sunday’s 29-9 loss to Arizona. The Cardinals are who we thought they were.
Was I out of line there? I apologize.
Kidding aside, Eberflus has to go, and it would behoove the Bears to jump the coaching market by making his position immediately available. Yes, the final nine games of the season would then amount to teaching Caleb Williams a new offense, but it’s better than starting over in April. Sure, I’d love for the Bears to hire Ben Johnson, but why waste two seasons of quarterback development when you can euthanize just this one instead? Let’s face it, Chicago is looking at the very ugly possibility of ending the 2024 season with an 11-game losing streak. Please tell me which of the team’s remaining opponents are beatable using the last eight quarters of Bears’ football as your guide.
You can give Eberflus credit for putting the blame squarely on his shoulders, but he’d be lying through his teeth if he said anything else. The Bears have been unprepared on both sides of the football since leaving London riding a three-game winning streak. Chicago’s offense looks tired and uninspired and its defense allows too many big-yardage plays. The team is often penalized in crucial situations. Eberflus and offensive coordinator Shane Waldron appear clueless on too many occasions. Cole Kmet had a single-catch game last week and didn’t draw a target against Arizona.
The Tyrique Stevenson situation isn’t helping, but Eberflus was just covering his own ineptitude. He was the one who gave the Commanders 13 yards just before Jayden Daniels hit Noah Brown with the game-winning score in Washington. That raised more eyebrows than the back-breaking Hail Mary. Today, the defense embodied that type of coaching, playing without the joie de vivre so evident in its now-broken streak of 13 games in which Chicago’s opponents scored fewer than 21 points.
The Bears looked like they had no interest in beating the Cardinals on Sunday and Williams has regressed after showing solid improvement in Games 3 through 6. That’s the most damning evidence working against Eberflus. And while Belichick might be a pipe dream, the idea is not as far-fetched as it may seem. Mike Vrabel is also available. Heck, I’d take Dave Wannestedt or Matt Nagy over Eberflus, whose inability to close games has cost the Bears at least 10 wins in three seasons. That said, choking is not as bad as failing to launch. A team’s competitiveness is a reflection of its leader. A head coach who therefore cannot inspire his players doesn’t deserve to keep his job. The Bears played today like winning was the furthest thing from their minds.
I know high school coaches with more intelligent responses than this utter idiocy.#BearDown @ChicagoBears #MattEberflus pic.twitter.com/vVTLGsiBpc
— Billy Krumb (@ClubhouseCancer) November 3, 2024
The onus to make a change rests on the shoulders of Chicago’s ownership group. It’s safe to assume that GM Ryan Poles understands that his team cannot win the NFC North with Eberflus at the helm. Belichick will be expensive, but you can cost-average his salary demands against the pittance the McCaskeys have paid every coach since Mike Ditka was fired. Vrabel will be cheaper, he’s younger and is perceived as an overachiever. He currently serves as a coaching consultant for the Browns. Other names will be mentioned as losses pile up, but most of those candidates are currently employed. Poles should act with immediate urgency instead of waiting on the availability of others.
The Bears’ job is not an attractive one, to say the least. The McCaskeys are tight-fisted dinosaurs in a game that passed them by several decades ago. Still, Poles has a strong nucleus in place. A better coach would have closed out a win against the Commanders. Blowing winnable games has been a little too commonplace in years two and three of the current regime. The Bears under Eberflus have lost too many games by less than two scores.
Handing the keys to defensive coordinator Eric Washington as an interim head coach is not the answer, either. Developing Williams has to be the organization’s highest priority. If that means punting away the final nine games to do so, so be it. The Bears need an offensive-minded coach with past successes in helping young quarterbacks flourish. Eberflus is not the answer, nor is Washington or any of Chicago’s other assistants, but maybe Belichick or Vrabel are.
Regardless, the Bears have to stop hiring coordinators with helium and focus on proven pedigrees. Chicago will never be a great franchise until the McCaskeys are willing to hire a coach who exemplifies the standard set by George Halas. There are no moral victories in staying the course. Williams looks lost and the rest of the team looks clumsy on its best days and confounding on its worst. Keeping Eberflus to avoid paying someone else will only decelerate the development of Williams and Rome Odunze. It’s also not fair to Eberflus to be kept around now if he won’t be back next season, though that is of lesser importance.
You could argue that the Bears are still within striking distance of making the playoffs, but are they? Poles knows the answer is “they are not” and it isn’t because he lacks playmakers. Chicago should have been 5-2 entering today’s game and you could make a case that they could have been 7-0. They’re 4-4 because they have a head coach who is:
- 3-18 in away games;
- 2-10 vs. the NFC North; and
- 14-28 overall.
It is time to make a change. Failure to do so will hurt the long-term success of the team and eventually cost Poles his job.
