The Bears’ latest win was maybe 20 minutes old when tight end Cole Kmet wondered whether they could do it again.
“We’ve done things once,” he said.
It’s repeating the good things that’s been the problem. In 29 games as a NFL head coach, Matt Eberflus has never won back-to-back games. The closest the 4-8 Bears have come all year was when they followed a pillow fight win against the league’s worst team with a historic fall-from-ahead loss at the hands of the Lions.
Otherwise, the Bears have been the definition of mediocre. Their last nine games have ended with, in order, a loss, win, loss, win, loss, loss, win, loss, win. During that span, they’ve scored 195 points and given up 190. Only two other teams between Weeks 4-12 had a point differential closer to zero.
“We have one good game and then we’ve lost,” Kmet said. “You gotta stack those things. That’s what this league is. You gotta stack these guys and just figure out a way to win. If it’s ugly, whatever.”
With five games to go — against the Lions, Browns, Cardinals, Falcons and Packers — the Bears need wins. Style points will matter, too; when they return to Halas Hall on Monday after their bye, the Bears will start a season-ending march that could decide the future of the franchise for the next decade.
Only if Eberflus finds momentum for the first time in his NFL career can he state his case to be invited back for a third season. He needs to go 3-2 to pull himself out of last place in the Bears’ all-time winning percentage. Eberflus needs to beat an impressive team for the first time all year —and the Lions on Sunday are the closest definition left on his schedule.
Quarterback Justin Fields’ future hangs in the balance, too — and might actually be murkier than that of Eberflus. He faces an uphill battle to be more appealing to the Bears than a high 2024 draft pick, provided the Panthers finish the season with one of the top two selections. Fields’ dynamic return to game action against the Lions — at least until a fumble in the final minute sealed the Bears’ loss — was followed by a win in Minneapolis in which Fields needed to find DJ Moore for a 36-yard completion with 55 seconds remaining to erase the damage caused by his own two fourth-quarter fumbles.
Will the Bears bring either back? Will general manager Ryan Poles have the authority to decide, or will new president/CEO Kevin Warren — who inherited all three men — show the world that Halas Hall is operating differently than in the previous century of football?
Their futures are intertwined. If the Bears end up with a top-two pick — USC’s Caleb Williams and North Carolina’s Drake Maye are considered excellent prospects — Warren and chairman George McCaskey will have to decide if they trust Poles to draft a quarterback and Eberflus’ staff to develop him. It could make more sense for the Bears to hire an offensive-minded coach with the goal of developing the quarterback, the way the Panthers figure to do with their own No. 1 overall choice, Bryce Young, this offseason.
The next five games will tell the Bears a lot.
“As a team, we haven’t let our record define who we are,” Fields said. “We know who we are as a team. We know what we’re capable of. It’s really just going out there and doing it, going out there and executing and finishing the way we know how.”
After the win against the Vikings, safety Eddie Jackson spoke with a straight face about needing to win out to make the playoffs.
“That’s our focus right now,” he said.
Doing so would require more wins that the Bears have logged since Oct. 25, 2022. The Bears haven’t proven yet that they can win consecutive games — much less five weeks in a row.
“There’s really not a huge talent gap disparity between one team to the next,” Kmet said. “You have to find ways to win it.”
