The Chicago Bears lost their 14th straight game and are in a tailspin that has no end in sight.
Things are a mess with the Chicago Bears. Everyone with any kind of vision can see that. They had a fourth-quarter collapse on Sunday and lost to the also struggling Denver Broncos, 31-28.
The loss was Chicago’s 14th in a row. Their last win came on October 24th of last year, almost an entire calendar year.
With all those losses come negative situations. There has been plenty of that. Wide receiver Chase Claypool, who caused a furor with his lack of effort in Week 1, is now banned from Halas Hall. Things have gotten so bad that the team feels having him away from the team is better than seeing him. Well, the Bears have not won a game with him in Chicago.
Let’s not forget the Alan Williams resignation. He did something that caused a raid on his home and for human resources to have him resign.
Then there is the situation between offensive coordinator Luke Getsy and quarterback Justin Fields. Getsy is trying to remake Fields into a pure pocket quarterback. Even when he changes and opens up the offense, he reverts back to his old play-calling late in the game.
The Bears’ offense still struggles, despite a great day on Sunday. The defense cannot stop anyone, and Cairo Santos wonders why the coaches don’t want to use him.
This is a tailspin that has no end in sight
Things are only going to get rougher for the Bears. They face the Washington Commanders. Washington took the defending NFC champ Philadelphia Eagles to overtime in Week 4. Also, they have one of the best defensive fronts in the NFL. They have a 2-2 record this season so far.
The schedule does not help the Bears. After Washington, they face the Minnesota Vikings. They just got their first win, but they have one of the best offenses in the league.
After that, the Bears face the Las Vegas Raiders. The Raiders are struggling at 1-3 but all of their rankings are higher than the Bears’.
In Week 8 Chicago faces the Los Angeles Chargers, another team with a high-flying offense. Additionally, they have Khalil Mack, who just had six sacks against his former team, the Raiders. Oh, wait, the Bears are also a former team of his.
Something has to be done soon. If not, then they could be added to the list of five NFL teams that had winless seasons. The 1930 Dallas Cowboys, 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 1982 Baltimore Colts, 2008 Detroit Lions, and the 2017 Cleveland Browns all went winless.
The Chicago Bears do not want to be the sixth team on that list. If there aren’t any changes, however, that could happen.
It is a matter of “when” and not “if” the team fires Eberflus
The time appears to be ticking for head coach Matt Eberflus. Yes, it’s only been two seasons. The Chicago Bears have fired coaches after just two seasons (Marc Trestman 2013-2014).
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However, as bad as Trestman was in his second season, he managed to win five games before the Bears fired him. Additionally, he actually had 13 wins in his two seasons in Chicago. That was not enough for the team.
So far, Eberflus is 3-18. That is the worst winning percentage in the history of the Chicago Bears. His team has to go 10-3 just to equal Trestman’s win total.
His winning percentage of .143 is the fourth-worst in the history of the league for coaches with at least 20 games. The three above him all coached in the 1960s and 1970s.
At this point, it is not a matter of if but when the Bears fire Eberflus. If the McCaskeys do what they always do, they will wait until the crap show is over. They will fire him on Black Monday, the day after the final game of the season when a lot of teams fire their head coaches.
Things are going from bad to worse for Eberflus. He already lost his defensive coordinator. Getsy is already on the hot seat.
If Eberflus doesn’t do something to turn things around his fate will be sealed.
He is already losing the players. How much more losing will happen before the players tune out? We saw how D.J. Moore contradicted Eberflus with Claypool. While the coach claimed effort was not a question, Moore confirmed that the players were talking to him throughout the game trying to get him to perform.
We also saw Claypool criticize the coaching. Further, Fields also seemed to criticize the coaching at one point.
Also, with the Claypool situation, we saw Eberflus twist like a pretzel trying to keep information from going public. There is no continuity in what is going out publicly.
After saying Claypool would be back this week to prepare for Washington, Eberflus stated the next day, however, that Claypool was banned from Halas Hall.
When there are reports that conflict with what the head coach is saying, then the writing is on the wall.
Poles has to do something
Poles, along with team president Kevin Warren, have to do something. We know that the McCaskeys are loathe to fire a coach mid-season. This has to change.
We have to see if Poles does have the independence that George McCaskey said he had. McCaskey claimed he was a fan and not a football guy. He has to show that now and if Poles decides a change is in order then he needs to support it.
Poles did his job in the offseason to add more talent to the roster. It was then incumbent on Eberflus and his staff to put the players in a position to succeed. That hasn’t happened and it doesn’t seem like it will with this staff. Poles has to be able to prepare to make changes.
This is a season that started out bad and is just getting worse. Poles needs to have the ability to at least stem the tide. If not, someone will flush the toilet and the season for good.