As the Bears’ season disinte-grates and the heat on coach Matt Eberflus increases, he’s staying the course — even if his course leads nowhere.
After the mediocre Cardinals dismantled the Bears 29-9 on Sunday, causing them to fall to 4-4, Eberflus delivered a whole lot of nothing Monday when pressed about how he’s going to redirect a listless, underachieving team.
He’s going to keep offensive coordinator Shane Waldron as play-caller, saying, incredibly, that “confidence is high” in him.
His plan is “to look inward.” As usual, there were no specifics.
Other teams already have taken more drastic action than changing play-callers. On Monday, the Saints fired coach Dennis Allen, a day after the Raiders dismissed offensive coordinator Luke Getsy, formerly of the Bears. 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. Outside of those games, the Bears have managed neither 17 points nor a victory. Worse yet, rookie 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, it 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 halfway through a 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 also second-worst on third down. Good thing they drafted a punter this year.
Various players have spoken up about changing the game plan. That’s not “outside noise,” as teams like to call it. The 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 a staple in the Bears’ kitchen.
At 4-4, they’re better than they were in Eberflus’ nightmarish first two seasons but well below expectations for a rebuilt roster, last in the NFC North and sitting outside the playoff field at the season’s midpoint.
Asked if 4-4 is good enough, given the talent on the team, Eberflus said, “Well, I just know that’s where we are.” He then pivoted to an answer about the Bears being “an improving team,” although “we haven’t improved in the last couple of weeks in terms of the win-loss column.”
Eberflus and Waldron might get a reprieve Sunday against the 2-7 Patriots, who come to Soldier Field as a one-touchdown underdog. But a continuation of their 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, they’ll be looking outside for a new coach.