It was Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs who used to say “you’re only two weeks away from humility.”
The Chicago Bears introduced the concept that you’re also only three weeks away from full-blown turmoil.
The Bears sped past the humility stage, pressed the accelerator and reached crisis in no time flat on their way to who knows where. As they prepare to play host to the Green Bay Packers on Sunday afternoon at Soldier Field, it’s obvious the only way to hit a net in their free fall is to get a victory.
Unquestionably, the Bears have had worse teams in their recent history than the current 4-5 version. They have been mired in longer losing streaks. Rosters have been gutted by more injuries. Coaching situations have been just as dire.
But in a 10-week start to the season — and specifically this current three-game stretch — the franchise’s serial mismanagement of the quarterback has never been more glaring. That’s saying something for an organization that, almost every time it reached an intersection, has made a wrong turn when it comes to the position decade after decade.
To say the Bears are reeling after road losses at Washington and Arizona, and then the flattest effort imaginable against a mediocre New England bunch, would be the understatement of the season. They’ve gone two games without a touchdown and have scored only 27 points since flying across the Atlantic Ocean and soundly defeating the Jacksonville Jaguars before entering their bye week. Now the future of the coaching staff is teetering in the balance with Matt Eberflus and his assistants certainly doomed unless the Bears can rise from the turf, suddenly become competitive and win with the kind of consistent execution that has been conspicuously absent.
Eberflus fired offensive coordinator Shane Waldron on Tuesday, less than 10 months after hiring him to replace Luke Getsy, and turned things over to passing game coordinator Thomas Brown. It’s a Hail Mary to rescue a season that began with so much promise and now looks incredibly daunting.
The Bears have eight games remaining — six against NFC North rivals — beginning with the Packers (6-3), who are coming off their bye and have won 10 straight in the series and 25 of the last 30, including the postseason.
“They’ll rally here,” predicted an AFC general manager. “Who do they have left on the schedule?”
Told the Packers are up next, followed by six games in the division and dates against the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks, the GM gulped. Hard.
“Well, they might not win another game,” he said. “Hey, we’ve all got our problems.”
Just three weeks ago the Bears were 4-2, fresh off the journey to London and riding a three-game winning streak. The mood at Halas Hall was buoyant, so much so that one staff member during the trip to Washington remarked he had not seen so much confidence and belief throughout the organization in a long time.
It was gone in 25 seconds — the time remaining in the Week 8 game when the Bears had a 15-12 lead and squandered it as Commanders QB Jayden Daniels connected with Noah Brown on a 52-yard pass, tipped by cornerback Tyrique Stevenson, after time expired.
The Bears spent the next week wallowing in the aftermath of an unthinkable setback, had a lousy effort at Arizona where the Cardinals trampled them and then were dominated by the Patriots, leading to the Waldron’s dismissal.
It would be one thing if Caleb Williams, the No. 1 pick, wasn’t playing well and the rest of the other rookie quarterbacks were also struggling. But the Bears have lost twice in three games to members of the same draft class — Daniels and Drake Maye of the Patriots. They haven’t been able to protect Williams, who has been sacked a league-high 38 times, including 15 in the last two games with left tackle Braxton Jones sidelined with a knee injury.
Williams has been hit too much. All of a sudden, he’s inaccurate. He has been unable to consistently get the ball to talented playmakers, and the deep-passing game has been a mess from the jump. He has been dropping his eyes and has gone from consistently climbing the pocket to having issues with his footwork because he cannot trust the protection. The only thing that hasn’t gone wrong is an injury, but if he keeps being hit at the rate things are going, that’s next.
Left to fix matters is Brown, a running back in his playing days, and quarterbacks coach Kerry Joseph, who is in his first year as an NFL position coach after serving as the assistant quarterbacks coach in Seattle the previous two seasons.
Brown had some common-sense answers when asked how he would work to get the offense back on track. He pledged to bring some creativity to the role, which is intriguing considering his background working for the Los Angeles Rams with Sean McVay.
“Everything, for me, starts up front,” Brown said. “Starts with the run game, how we attack, knock it forward mentality and we will build off that.”
Can Thomas Brown’s fresh approach help unlock Chicago Bears rookie QB Caleb Williams?
That’s an age-old strategy Bears fans and players alike can get behind. The team is going to try to help Williams get rid of the ball more quickly and maybe reduce the number of progressions he has on certain plays. Those who have worked with Brown previously believe he’ll emphasize getting the quarterback on the run more, create more half-field reads and involve more presnap motion.
It sounds like a good starting point for what is a messy situation with questions about every level of the organization. There will be months for the blame game to play out — we’re only in the first quarter of that ballgame — and if Brown can generate an instant bump in production, it will make hiring Waldron only look worse.
Unfortunately, all of the criticism cannot be heaped on Waldron, but wouldn’t that be tidy? That’s impossible with the Bears stuck in the cyclical dysfunction that defines their quarterback development.
Williams remains supremely talented, and hoping he can become a high-level performer is not exhausted by any stretch of the imagination. He’s going to be playing catch-up, which only can happen if the Bears discover a way to right so many wrongs.
It all happened so quickly for the Bears. From promise and the idea of challenging in the division and playoffs to being humbled and ultimately showing that things at 1920 Football Drive remain very much in tumult.
Scouting report
Xavier McKinney, Packers safety
Information for this report was obtained from NFL scouts
McKinney, 6-foot, 201 pounds, is in his first season in Green Bay. The Packers selected him in a crowded market of safeties in free agency, signing him to a four-year, $68 million contract after the former Alabama standout and 2020 second-round pick spent the first four years of his career with the New York Giants.
McKinney has a career-high six interceptions, tied for the most in the NFL, and he became the first player since the NFL-AFL merger to have an interception in each of his first five games with a team. He is fifth on the Packers with 40 tackles and has one sack and one fumble recovery.
“Outside of Saquon Barkley to the Eagles and Derrick Henry to the Ravens, find a more impactful free-agent signing than Xavier McKinney,” the scout said. “And I think you can even put McKinney above Henry because of the impact he’s had for that defense.
“When Jeff Hafley came to the Packers, one of the first things the defensive coordinator needed to do was find a post player, someone with range over the top and the football IQ to find the ball and the skill to finish it. McKinney does that better than anyone in the league right now. He’s got coverage skills. He can tackle and he’s an interchangeable defensive back and he’s an impact player at all three levels of the defense.
“I don’t know why the Giants let McKinney walk. I don’t know why they let Saquon leave. Two guys they let walk are going to be All-Pro this season. That was one of the biggest surprises to me when New York allowed McKinney to leave. They coached him every day. They saw what he can do and I know they were a struggling team with a bad roster, but good for Green Bay. The Packers were aggressive and they paid him what he deserved and he’s changed everything for that defense.”
