4 October 2023
When the Denver Broncos completed a stunning comeback for a 31-28 victory Sunday at Soldier Field, the Chicago Bears were left with a sad distinction.
The Bears and Carolina Panthers are the only NFL teams without a win through the first four weeks of the season.
Still reeling from their 14th straight loss, the Bears must pick up the pieces quickly to prepare for Thursday’s game against the Washington Commanders. As the players and coaches try to make the quick turnaround, Tribune reporters Dan Wiederer and Colleen Kane talk through four true-or-false questions about the state of the team.
Wiederer: Let’s start with a key moment from Sunday’s game. True or false? Matt Eberflus’ decision to go for it on fourth-and-1 was understandable.
Kane: True. I don’t agree with the decision, but I understand Eberflus’ rationale behind it. He believed the offense, which totaled 171 rushing yards Sunday, could get the yard. He thought the Bears could run more time off the clock before scoring, making it more difficult for the Broncos to respond against a Bears defense that, because of injuries, had some young players in the secondary. In a different world from the one the Bears are dwelling in, you want the coach to have confidence in his offense to get a yard — and for there to be a mountain of evidence to back up that confidence.
But we haven’t seen that the Bears offense can perform in the clutch. In fact, one of the only players we do know can perform consistently when the pressure is on is kicker Cairo Santos, who hasn’t missed a field goal or an extra point this year. Eberflus should have let Santos do his thing for the lead. And then he should have put it on his defense — the unit Eberflus now coordinates — to make the stop against a mediocre Broncos offense in the final three minutes. That would have been the right decision, even if I get the one he made.
Wiederer: I, too, understand Eberflus’ thought process in that moment. And I am all for the spirited debate on what the correct call in that situation was. Again, the Bears needed about 2.5 feet to pick up a first down — presumably a simple task for an offense that needed just one more productive run to shorten the game and escape with a win. It wasn’t a big ask. And I wasn’t offended as many were that they called a read-option run from the shotgun. Still, I probably would have preferred a play that kept the ball in Justin Fields’ hands in that circumstance.
I also, in the moment, said I would have taken the easy field goal, given the game situation. The Broncos had rallied with 21 unanswered points to tie the score. At that point, it just felt like the Bears needed something to stop the bleeding, a positive moment to provide some calm. A Santos kick would have done that. But alas … here we are again, in this interminable 14-game losing streak with a whole different manner of the Bears stumbling to defeat.
Kane: Next up, true or false? It doesn’t matter that Justin Fields’ performance came against a bad Broncos defense.
Wiederer: True. It does not matter. No one needed to experience a burst of success as badly as Fields did. No one needed to find the flow in the passing game and have that kind of target-practice outing. So I don’t care if the Bears were playing the Denver Broncos or the Glenbrook South Titans JV team. The Bears offense just needed to have itself a day. Fields needed to have himself a day. Which he did. For three quarters.
After throwing his career-high fourth touchdown pass, on his way to a career-high 335 passing yards, Fields ended the third quarter with a 155.7 passer rating. His only incompletion in his first 24 attempts was a Hail Mary to end the first half. He was making big plays with conviction and dropping TD passes with magical improvisational skill. Yes, there were those two crucial fourth-quarter turnovers in an absolutely dispiriting loss. But for the first time in more than 10 months, the Bears offense was in a groove and provided a lot to be encouraged by.
Kane: Absolutely right. As demoralizing as that loss was — and you wrote about Fields lying down in his locker stall after the game as he processed what went wrong — the film review can’t have been as awful as the previous week, when the Bears did little right against the Kansas City Chiefs starters. We’ve been waiting more than two years to see Fields have a passing day like he put together Sunday, and it should give him and the Bears a shot of confidence that they can make such plays, even against better teams than the Broncos.
Now they need to close out games. There was a lot of talk last year during the Bears’ then-10-game losing streak about whether learning how to win was important. Some observers said no, especially once consideration of the No. 1 draft pick came into play. They can’t possibly say that now, as two more fourth-quarter turnovers doomed Fields and the Bears. The offensive strides were great. Let’s see improvement in how they finish next.
Wiederer: True or false? Matt Eberflus suddenly finds himself on the hot seat.
Kane: True. But he might be sitting on that hot seat for a while. You can’t look at all that has happened over the first four weeks — the losing, the manner of losing, the distractions with defensive coordinator Alan Williams’ resignation and wide receiver Chase Claypool’s current banishment from Halas Hall — and believe that Eberflus’ job isn’t in danger. But I’m not entirely sure he is in danger of losing it right now.
We all know of the Bears organization’s past unwillingness to make a coaching change midseason. But even if, say, new President and CEO Kevin Warren persuades them to change their line of thinking there, a big question remains. You posed it to me Monday morning, and I still don’t know the answer. Who would replace Eberflus midseason? Luke Getsy or Richard Hightower? What would happen to the defense? The Bears already lost their defensive coordinator because of the Williams debacle, and then they’re going to get rid of their head coach, who took over as defensive coordinator, too? Would that really benefit the team general manager Ryan Poles is trying to build? I’m not sure.
Wiederer: Right. It’s hard for me to envision a scenario in which Eberflus is fired within the season. But there are also 14 more weeks ahead. And if the Bears continue to unravel the way they have over the first four weeks, nothing is off the table. It’s also becoming increasingly difficult to see Eberflus holding on to his job into 2024 if the Bears don’t produce a major turnaround in the next three-plus months.
Through 21 games under Eberflus’ watch, the Bears have lost 18 times. They have been inconsistent. They have fallen apart in game-on-the-line situations repeatedly. They have shown few indications they are on the verge of becoming a good football team. So what’s next? We’ll just have to wait and see how everything unfolds from here — with the temperature on Eberflus’ chair growing hotter.
Kane: Last one, Dan. True or false? The Bears will go a full year without a win.
Wiederer: How are we doing this? Seriously. How is this “Days between victories” counter still ticking upward? How has it reached 344 days now? Oh, I guess I owe you an answer here. False. There’s no way the Bears will get all the way to Oct. 24 without experiencing a victory. There’s no way. There’s no way, right?
Three games sit between now and then. Thursday’s road game against the Washington Commanders. An Oct. 15 home date against the Minnesota Vikings. And an Oct. 22 game at Soldier Field against the Las Vegas Raiders. The Bears will win at least one of those games. Right? Speak it into existence with me. For everyone’s sake. The Bears will win at least one of those games. The Bears will win at least one of those games.
Given the improvements the team seemed to make with the way it played for three quarters against the Broncos, the Bears certainly have enough to seize one victory this month.
Kane: I feel like I’m saying this just to give you and everyone else a shred of hope, but, OK, yes, false. The Bears will win one of their next three games against teams that through Week 4 have a combined record of 4-8. But I’m not saying that with extreme confidence, and I honestly don’t know if I actually will pick the Bears when it comes down to our predictions.
Yes, Fields and the Bears offense showed enough of a spark against the (super bad) Broncos defense that there’s reason to believe progress can be made. But what I keep coming back to, given the manner of Sunday’s loss, is have they shown they can pull off a win in the clutch? We’ve been waiting ages to see that. Or actually, it has been just about a year.
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