Bears coach Matt Eberflus spent Monday asking questions of his players in 10-minute exit interviews that lasted from 7 a.m.-4 p.m. The questions yet to be asked of him by his bosses — chairman George McCaskey, president/CEO Kevin Warren and general manager Ryan Poles — will be far more compelling.
It starts, as always, with the quarterback.
Warren and Poles vowed to conduct a thorough evaluation of the program, and they set about it Monday. As other NFL coaches were fired Monday morning, Eberflus sat next to Poles as they conducted player interviews at Halas Hall.
Previous Bears coaches Marc Trestman, John Fox and Matt Nagy were all fired around breakfast. Eberflus was not. But neither Warren — a new variable, and the lead decision-maker, since replacing Ted Phillips in April — nor Poles have issued a full-throated endorsement of their coach.
Eberflus said he looked forward to meeting with his bosses. Their questioning of him should begin with the hottest topic in Chicago. Justin Fields’ uneven season finale was a sobering reminder that the Bears are more likely to draft a quarterback with the No. 1 pick than to keep him in 2024. If so, why is Eberflus, a defensive coach by trade, qualified to be the one to oversee the development of either USC’s Caleb Williams or North Carolina’s Drake Maye?
The Bears don’t have to look far into their history to question the wisdom of pairing a rookie quarterback with a coach in a must-win season. The Bears drafted Mitch Trubisky before Fox’s final season and Fields before Nagy’s last year. Both coaches began the year with a veteran — and not a first-round pick — as their starter before switching in-season. They combined to go 11-22 and get outscored by 152 points.
Eberflus needs to explain to his bosses how he’ll avoid those pitfalls. And then he needs to present a plan to fix the passing game, either with or — most likely — without Fields.
Will Eberflus retain Luke Getsy? In his two years as the Bears’ offensive coordinator, Getsy has produced the fewest passing yards in the NFL. If it’s not Getsy, will the Bears overhaul their offensive system, changing from the style that Eberflus chose two years ago because he found it the most difficult to defend? Who would he want to hire? Will it be attractive to candidates who know Eberflus would be on the hot seat in 2024? Will those who interview be asked how they’d fix Fields, or which college player they’d prefer?
Will Eberflus keep calling defensive plays? Will he hire a defensive coordinator? If the best argument for Bears ownership keeping Eberflus for a third season is consistency, doesn’t that get negated by hiring new coordinators on both sides of the ball?
And what about the H.I.T.S. system? Does a team that finished with the 12th-most penalty yards get credit for flashing “smarts?”
Eberflus needs to explain all of the above to his bosses. His players seem bought in.
Defensive end Montez Sweat, the team’s highest-paid player, said he’d “love to see Flus back,” calling him smart, innovative and a good listener. Linebacker Jack Sanborn echoed him, saying that Eberlfus was strong when the Bears were their weakest.
“I think he maybe saw it before any of us saw it,” Sanborn said. “And really just didn’t change throughout the rough times or the good times. Because it was ugly at times. It was bad. We were playing bad ball. We weren’t executing. We weren’t playing good.
“And then it kinda changed. I think the guys in this locker room could feel that. I think everyone else could feel that.”
