As the Bears’ season disintegrates and the heat rises on coach Matt Eberflus, he’s staying the course.
Even if his course leads nowhere.
The Bears fell to 4-4 after getting dismantled 29-9 by the mediocre Cardinals on Sunday, and Eberflus delivered a whole lot of nothing Monday when pressed about how he’s going to redirect his listless, underachieving team. He’s going to keep offensive coordinator Shane Waldron as play caller, saying incredibly that “confidence is high” in him.
Eberflus’ plan is “to look inward,” and, as usual, there were no specifics.
Other teams already have taken more drastic action than changing play callers. The Saints fired coach Dennis Allen and the Raiders dismissed offensive coordinator Luke Getsy, formerly of the Bears, on Monday. The Jets canned coach Robert Saleh a month ago.
Eberflus referred to the Bears as “an improving team,” but the evidence points the other way. The four teams they’ve beaten have a combined 10-24 record and all have bottom-10 defenses, and aside from those games the Bears have managed neither 17 points nor a victory. Worse yet, quarterback Caleb Williams doesn’t appear to be progressing.
“We’re looking to find answers,” Eberflus said. “The changes we’re going to make are we’re going to look inward and make sure we do a good job of utilizing our talents and really just general, basic execution of our plan.”
Execution is the vaguest umbrella term in football and can be used for virtually any faltering aspect of a team. At minimum, however, when it keeps getting mentioned in conversations about the offense, that signals a disconnect between Waldron and the players. Tight end Cole Kmet said Sunday there’s no way the Bears should still be dealing with that issue halfway through the season.
At 21.5 points per game, the Bears are 19th in the NFL and near what they averaged last season. They’re in the bottom third in rushing and passing. They’re second-worst on third down. Good thing they drafted a punter this year.
Various players have spoken up for changing the game plan. That’s not “outside noise,” as NFL teams like to call it. The Bears’ offensive struggles are hardly a media creation.
“We’re not happy with it,” rookie wide receiver Rome Odunze said. “We expect a lot more from ourselves, and those are things that we need to correct immediately… Everybody needs to hone in on those things and come together, have that belief in one another that we can get the job done, and I believe that we can.”
But why hasn’t this been fixed already? Including offseason practices, the Bears are now in their sixth month of working on their offense.
“I’m not sure if I can pinpoint exactly what it is,” Odunze said. “We have glimpses of it here and there. We have glimpses of the success that we can have.”
Glimpses, but nothing sustained. That’s the recipe for a .500 team, and it’s a staple in the Bears’ kitchen.
They’re 4-4, and while that’s better than Eberflus’ nightmarish first two seasons, it’s well below expectations for the rebuilt roster, has them last in the NFC North and sitting outside the playoff field at the season’s midpoint.
When asked if a 4-4 record is good enough given the talent on the Bears’ roster, Eberflus said, “Well, I just know that’s where we are,” then pivoted to an answer about the Bears being “an improving team,” although, “We haven’t improved in the last couple weeks in terms of the win-loss column.”
What does that even mean?
Eberflus and Waldron might get a reprieve Sunday against the 2-7 Patriots, who come to Soldier Field as a touchdown-underdog, but the unraveling seems inevitable after that. The Bears aren’t ready for the monstrous second half of their schedule, and if looking inwardly for solutions continues to fail, the team will be looking outside the building for a new coach.