The Bears and coach Matt Eberflus were on the brink almost immediately last season. All their talk about taking the next step, eyeing the playoffs and being near the completion of the rebuild quieted quickly after they were blown out at home by the Packers to kick off an 0-4 start.
It was alarming. Eberflus was under fire as his team looked totally unprepared against the Packers, totally unreliable against the Buccaneers and totally inept against the Chiefs before a total meltdown against the Broncos. Few would’ve objected to firing Eberflus then.
His team spent the rest of the season chasing .500 and was never in reach of the playoffs.
He can’t let that happen again.
“Look at who makes it to the postseason — they start fast,” Eberflus said Wednesday. “The guys understand how important it is to start fast.”
Eberflus, who likes to break the season into quarters, put that in his players’ heads by pulling up stats on the first four games last season for the 14 playoff teams in May, four months ahead of the Bears’ season opener Sunday against the Titans at Soldier Field.
None was below .500; nine were 3-1 or 4-0. In a larger sample size over the last decade, 91% of teams that were under .500 at that stage missed the playoffs.
There are no excuses for Eberflus this season, not even with a rookie as his starting quarterback in Caleb Williams. General manager Ryan Poles has provided him with a playoff-caliber roster and Williams, the most NFL-ready prospect in years.
Eberflus was confident the team was better positioned for a strong start this season, but no coach would say otherwise.
He did make some valid points, including the Bears having far fewer injuries and less missed time in training camp this season. It also helps that, while the team is relatively young, 17 of the 22 projected starters are in at least their third season.
The Bears have largely been reconstructed the last three years, and when surveying the power players in the organization, the franchise appears much healthier.
Team president Kevin Warren and Poles command respect. Williams is a breath of fresh air. But Eberflus? Big questions linger about the coach with the 10-24 career record.
And maybe he has the answers. He’s the wildest of wild cards right now as betting websites have strong odds on him as first coach to be fired as well as Coach of the Year.
Eberflus undoubtedly understands that starting hot would put everyone at ease, including his bosses.
A scene in the final episode of “Hard Knocks” peeked in on Eberflus’ office during a meeting with Williams in which he stressed the importance of practices in preparation for the Titans.
“Start well,” Williams said from across the desk.
“Start well and start fast,” Eberflus concurred.
The Bears’ schedule lends itself to that. They’re four-point favorites against the Titans, who went 6-11 last season and were poor in pass defense. In their first nine games, the Bears play five of the worst seven teams in 2023 and only two incumbent playoff teams — the Texans and Rams (both 10-7 wild cards) — before closing the season with a treacherous path through all their NFC North games and some other challenges.
If things go well for the Bears, they could be 7-2, and 49 of 50 teams that started that hot or hotter in the last decade made the playoffs. But the success rate dropped to 71% for 6-3 teams and plunged to 37% at 5-4.
Eberflus talked a lot about almost-wins last season as the Bears blew double-digit leads in the fourth quarter three times. He knows better than anybody that it wouldn’t take much for 7-2 dreams to become a 4-5 reality. And the math on that probably adds up to him being out of a job.