The list of catastrophes Matt Eberflus has survived in two and a half seasons to remain head coach of the Bears is remarkable.
Imagine walking into Halas Hall as an objective observer and seeing the negative side of the ledger stacked with a franchise-worst 14-game losing streak, two assistant coaches fired for non-football reasons, two misfires on offensive coordinators, a failure to this point to bring the best out of two first-round quarterbacks, team captains publicly objecting to various decisions and a string of episodes in which stepping to a microphone only made things worse.
Whew. That’s a lot.
Sometimes what doesn’t kill you doesn’t make you stronger. It only pushes you closer to getting fired.
Eberflus is back to the brink yet again — he’s lived there virtually his entire tenure — as the Bears wobble into their home game Sunday against the Patriots woefully underachieving at 4-4. They already have wasted their chance to stack victories and gain margin during the first half of the season, which had a much, much easier schedule than they’re about to encounter.
The Patriots are the worst team in the NFL, and even then, who’s ready to bet their mortgage payment on Eberflus and the Bears handling them?
Even if they do clobber the 2-7 Patriots as any decent team would — even the Titans and Jaguars beat them recently — don’t be distracted by that. The Bears already struck fool’s gold with a three-game winning streak against weak opponents and were exposed the moment it got even a little bit tougher.
And it’s about to get a lot tougher.
For those who want Eberflus fired, it sure looks like the schedule is about to take care of that. The Bears have all six NFC North games left, and each of those three teams is on track for the playoffs. There’s a visit to the 49ers, who are struggling but still potentially a powerhouse, and the Bears’ easiest remaining game after Sunday isn’t easy at all: a Week 17 Thursday night game against the Seahawks.
There is nothing about this season or Eberflus’ overall body of work that suggests the Bears can stay afloat in those waters, let alone sail to a playoff berth. ESPN’s latest projection put their postseason chances at 14%. It was 7% in The New York Times with minimal change forecasted if they beat the Patriots.
Much like former Bears quarterback Justin Fields as he hit the home stretch last season, Eberflus would have to show something totally different than what he has put on paper to this point for the organization to justify bringing him back. The best eight-game stretch of his career is 5-3, and most of that was against non-playoff teams. He’ll have to match or exceed that in the final eight for this season to be a success.
It would require a definitive surge by rookie quarterback Caleb Williams, whose development is by far the biggest variable in the equation, and an offensive revolution at large.
It won’t matter how good Eberflus’ defense is if that doesn’t happen. A defensive-minded head coach can get fired for the offense failing. That’s part of the job.
The evidence that he can turn it around is scarce. He often teetered last season, starting 0-4 and blowing three big fourth-quarter leads on his way to 7-10, and general manager Ryan Poles said in an interview with the Sun-Times this year he knew he was going against public opinion by bringing him back this season.
But what’s changed since then besides the haircut and beard? Based on the first eight games, not nearly enough.