There really isn’t much to hide when it comes to what has gone so wrong for the wayward Bears. No need to break out a magnifying glass to search for the deficiencies.
But coach Matt Eberflus insisted on keeping the findings of his thorough internal review mostly confidential. There’s a lot wrong, and Eberflus has plans to fix it, but the most the Bears revealed Tuesday was that it was high time to cut end-of-the-roster wide receiver Ihmir Smith-Marsette and give that spot to practice-squad receiver Isaiah Coulter.
It’ll take much more than that.
Eberflus highlighted obvious concerns, including the dreadful run defense, and Justin Fields stood most prominently among them. He played exactly one game that inspired optimism about his future as the franchise quarterback, and the other five were littered with red flags.
Eberflus and his staff held performance reviews with everyone on the roster Tuesday, and while he reiterated he didn’t want to divulge anything from those discussions “because I’m not going to give away anything for, obviously, competitive purposes,” he made clear he wants to see better footwork and quicker decisions from Fields.
“You can make small, incremental improvements as you go,” Eberflus said. “That’s with anybody — You can learn to read your keys and see what the coverages are faster. You can identify that pre-snap, post-snap a little bit faster.”
Coming off a potential breakthrough performance against the Vikings, Fields stumbled last week against the Commanders and went 14 of 27 for 190 yards with a touchdown and an interception for a 71.5 passer rating. He also ran 12 times for 88 yards as the Bears lost 12-7. He got hit 12 times in the pocket, including five sacks.
Of the 31 quarterbacks who have thrown at least 100 passes, he is 30th in passer rating (72.7), 31st in completion percentage (54.8) and 29th in yardage (869). He also has the NFL’s highest interception rate with 4.3% of his passes getting picked off.
As they love to say at Halas Hall, though, it’s not just Fields’ fault. It’s a cluster of interconnected problems.
When Eberflus asks Fields to speed up his process in the pocket, it’s not easy to hurry through the decision-making flowchart.
Did the offensive line give him any protection? If no, there’s no choice but to take off running.
Did the wide receivers run the correct routes and get open? If no, again, hit the gas.
And all those ongoing hindrances are rooted in choices by general manager Ryan Poles, Eberflus and offensive coordinator Luke Getsy. The 2-4 record isn’t some misfortune that befell them. They’re the architects.
In his teardown of Ryan Pace’s roster, Poles was frugal. While it made sense to free up money for the future, Fields would be a huge part of that future. It would be imprudent to go so cheap on the offensive line and at wide receiver that they hamper his development, and that certainly seems to be the case.
“You’ve always got to look at each play and say, ‘OK, what was [the problem]?’” Eberflus said. “And do we maximize our guys to make plays? And we’re looking at all those things right now.”
But he needs actual solutions. Matt Nagy was always looking at things. He was always going to get back to everybody when he finally found “the whys.” He’s no longer a head coach.
The expectations on this Bears season, at the onset of a rebuild, are reasonable. No one’s even demanding they finish with a winning record. But Eberflus is under constant evaluation and must show he’s improving the team and facilitating Fields’ growth. Whatever the condition of this roster, standards still apply. The Bears don’t have to be great right now, just respectable.
They haven’t been, and their next three opponents — the Patriots on Monday, followed by the Cowboys and Dolphins — have the potential to embarrass them if Eberflus’ top-secret plans don’t work quickly.
