The Bears’ offense is broken.
It risks breaking Caleb Williams.
That was the only conclusion to draw from the team’s 19-3 loss to the worst-in-the-league Patriots on a somber Sunday, as disillusioning an afternoon as the franchise has had in years. On the way to their third consecutive loss, the 4-5 Bears failed to score a touchdown for a second straight game, a span of 23 possessions. The Bears have gone consecutive games without a touchdown for the first time in 20 years.
Williams was sacked a stomach-churning nine times, the result of his refusal to throw the ball away and playing behind an offensive line that, for most of the game, featured only one Week 1 starter because of injuries.
An offense that surged for a three-week period earlier in the season regressed to the point where its closest comparison was the Week 1 game. The Bears averaged 2.8 yards per play in Williams’ first NFL game. Against the Pats, they averaged 2.4.
The offense is getting worse. Williams is getting worse.
He went 16-for-30 for 120 yards and a 63.2 passer rating and was outplayed by the Patriots’ Drake Maye, the No. 3 overall pick. Maye went 15-for-25 for 184 yards and a touchdown with one interception for a 79.4 passer rating.
A franchise that has never fired a head coach during the season now faces questions about its leadership just barely past the halfway point of what was supposed to be a breakthrough year.
Coach Matt Eberflus — a candidate to be fired himself — is considering taking offensive play-calling duties away from coordinator Shane Waldron, whom he chose from a list of eight candidates this offseason. Eberflus wouldn’t rule out a play-caller change after the game, saying that he will “look at everything from the top to the bottom.” That’s a different tone than he struck a week ago, when he said Waldron would continue calling plays.
There’s precedent, too. Last week, the Raiders fired Luke Getsy, the same offensive coordinator Eberflus fired at the end of last season.
“We’ve got to find the continuity there, find the structure that we need, the winning formula we need to score points,” Eberflus said.
Eberflus could choose to fire Waldron or simply demote him. Williams didn’t exactly lobby for Waldron, saying he could adapt if a change was made.
“I mean, they’re not going to reinvent the wheel,” he said. “We’re midseason, and it’s not a decision for me. I have to do what [Eberflus] says. I have to deal with whatever decision he makes, and I have to be fine with it. Will I be able to adapt? Yes, I will. We’ll be able to adapt, whatever decision Coach makes. From there, we have to go out and execute and win games.”
Pass-game coordinator Thomas Brown, who served as the Panthers’ O-coordinator last year, would be the most logical candidate to take Waldron’s place. It didn’t go well last season — Panthers coach Frank Reich called plays for six weeks, then handed the duties off to Brown for three weeks. When Reich was fired, Brown called plays again. The Panthers finished last in the NFL in yards.
General manager Ryan Poles stacked his roster with veterans to give Williams, the No. 1 pick in the draft, a sense of stability. Changing coaches midseason does the opposite.
The Bears have never fired a head coach in the middle of the year. The last offensive coordinator to not make it to the end of a season was Gary Crowton, who left to become BYU’s head coach in 2000. Former coach Matt Nagy twice demoted himself from play-caller, handing the duties to coordinator Bill Lazor in 2020 and 2021.
The cost of doing nothing is great. President/CEO Kevin Warren and even chairman George McCaskey must know that.
The Bears have led for 25 seconds the last three games. No Bears quarterback has been sacked more than Williams was by the Pats. His nine times getting sacked tied Chad Hutchinson (2005), Jay Cutler (2010) and Justin Fields (2021) for the most in Bears history. In the first quarter, Williams took an eight-yard sack that knocked the Bears out of field-goal range. It was the second time in three weeks he’d done the same thing.
The Bears have dropped back to pass 66 times in the last six quarters. Williams has been sacked 13 times — almost 20% of the time. At that rate, Williams won’t make it through the season upright.
In addition to the Bears’ protection problems, their receivers couldn’t get open, and Williams couldn’t get the ball where it needed to be. That’s a formula for a rookie QB to develop mental and physical scars that will haunt him for years.
It will only get worse. The Bears have the toughest remaining strength of schedule in the league. Entering the Texans-Lions game Sunday night, future Bears opponents had won 70% of their games.
“Caleb’s strong,” Eberflus said. “He’s strong inside. He’s strong outside. He’s a strong individual, and he’s been through adversity. He knows how to do this. He knows how to get through adversity by pulling together. We’ve got to pull it together with everybody else, too. It’s important we get that done moving forward.”
Whether they move forward with Waldron — or Eberflus — is a different question altogether.