Tall Midget wrote:
The Washington Post weighs in on the Bears' dysfunction...
A reckoning is coming for the brass of the Chicago Bears.
Not for the owners of the hapless NFL franchise, mind you, as there are virtually no consequences for football oligarchs, regardless of how feckless their leadership may be. But those tapped by the McCaskey family to oversee their roster and manage the football product already are imperiled in the eyes of many of their colleagues around the league — for good reason — and there is a growing suspicion that team president Kevin Warren has seen enough to realize another reboot is in order.
Warren, highly esteemed from his time running the Minnesota Vikings, joined the Bears in January after serving as Big Ten commissioner, and the frugal McCaskeys are loath to eat big money by firing coaches and executives with years remaining on their contracts. However, this is no ordinary Bears implosion. Chicago has lost 13 straight games, and its defense has allowed at least 25 points in each of them. Defensive coordinator Alan Williams left the team under bizarre circumstances last week. There’s an obvious disconnect between quarterback Justin Fields and this coaching staff, and first-time head coach Matt Eberflus (who has gone 3-17 since taking the job in 2022) and rookie general manager Ryan Poles are struggling to make a compelling case for why they should keep their jobs.
“Kevin has seen enough to clean it out,” said one NFL GM, who is not authorized to speak publicly about other teams’ management decisions and structures, on the condition of anonymity. “It’s my understanding that he has the power to do it, and the coach and GM can’t go around him to ownership. Maybe he feels a little pressure to keep Poles, but he sees how [messed] up it is there, and the more attention all of this gets, the easier it is for him to do what he has to do.”
Much of this rot may be rooted in yet another bizarre hiring process that somehow netted this history-making tandem of coach and GM. After waiting too long to fire coach Matt Nagy, the Bears commissioned an awkward process with longtime chief executive Ted Phillips (already transitioning toward retirement) seemingly at the helm and Hall of Fame former executive Bill Polian commandeering the interviews. Trace Armstrong, a former Bears defensive end who’s now an agent for coaches and general managers, also held influence in the process, according to the GM who spoke under the condition of anonymity.
“This was always doomed,” said another NFL executive, who was a candidate for the Bears’ GM position and remains in the league. His employer would not permit him to speak freely about another team’s inner workings. “Remember, you had Ted running one search, and then it really was like Polian running his own search … at the same time, and then everyone is wondering if they’re just going to hire one of Trace’s guys, no matter what.”
Of course, this regime is hardly alone in its futility. The Bears have one playoff win since they reached the Super Bowl after the 2006 season and just seven postseason berths since 1992. Losing is their brand. It’s how fast Eberflus and Poles have sunk that’s most remarkable, even by Bears standards, and their ousters feel about as inevitable as Matt Rhule’s in Carolina this time a year ago.
On Sunday, the Bears are 3½-point underdogs at home against Denver, despite the winless Broncos yielding 70 points and 726 yards Sunday. The Bears have been outscored 437-247 during this slump, and their past six losses have been by an average of 21.3 points. They have failed to score more than 20 points in nine straight games and have been held to 17 or fewer in six of them.
The staff would let you believe it’s all about the limited quarterback they inherited, but Eberflus’s defense has been the bigger disaster. A longtime defensive coordinator and assistant, Eberflus is back to calling the coverages, and his vanilla approach is fooling no one. The Bears have one sack all season and, per TruMedia, they lead the NFL in the percentage of plays in cover-two since Week 1 of 2022 — a scheme that offenses have become increasingly adept at picking apart.
Since Eberflus arrived, Chicago is last in the league in yards allowed per play, yards per attempt and points per game. The defense has given up a staggering 53 more points than any other team in that span. The Bears have allowed 90 more first-half points than the league average since the start of 2022; Fields (5-23 as a starter) is constantly playing from behind, which compounds the team’s issues developing the remarkably athletic quarterback.
Much was made of Fields mentioning coaching as part of the Bears’ issues entering Week 3, but his usage has been even more concerning than his on-field performance. Chicago’s offense showed a pulse last season by leaning into Fields’s superior running ability in option looks with designed quarterback runs. It set up deep shots off play-action and downfield passes, with Fields ranging outside the pocket and drawing defenders to him.
Yet through the first two weeks of this season, Fields’s pass percentage outside the pocket went from 38 percent (in 2022) to 19 percent, and his play-action percentage went from 34 percent to 11 percent. His attempts over 10 air yards went from 38 percent to 19 percent, and he went from five designed runs per game to two and 11 rushing attempts to 6.5. “It’s crazy,” the opposing GM said of how Fields has been deployed. “It’s almost like going out of your way not to put him in position to succeed.” The viral clip of Bucs linebacker Devin White’s on-field bewilderment about how Bears receiver DJ Moore was being used — and Moore’s candid reaction — spoke volumes, too.
And then Sunday, Chiefs Coach Andy Reid, with Nagy as offensive coordinator, whipped Eberflus’s defense, putting up 456 yards in a 41-10 win. It rendered any further experimentation with Fields a moot point.
It’s not entirely bleak for the Bears, however, with the No. 1 pick — and a shot at a generational quarterback prospect of their choosing — a distinct possibility. That raises the question of whether this coach and GM should have anything to say or do with that. And even Bill Polian surely knows the correct answer to that query.
I had no clue Trace Armstrong was involved in this. If so what a mistake. I assume he is NOT also Mike McDaniel's agent?
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