Assuming the Bears keep coach Matt Eberflus — which hasn’t been finalized, but there’s clearly momentum — he’ll be instrumental in making massive decisions about their future. Eberflus has talked openly about plans to confer with general manager Ryan Poles to assess the roster and coaching staff, so he obviously expects to stay.
The next biggest question marks are quarterback Justin Fields and offensive coordinator Luke Getsy. And while Eberflus on Monday avoided saying where he stands on them for next season, he didn’t sound fully convinced.
He loved Fields’ performance in the 37-17 victory over the Falcons on Sunday, when he threw for an efficient 268 yards, rushed for 45, had no turnovers and produced two touchdowns. He also had a 25-yard run negated by penalty, and rookie wide receiver Tyler Scott dropped a beautiful throw that would’ve been a 33-yard touchdown pass.
Eberflus described that as “what we’ve been searching for,” but when asked if he has seen enough growth from Fields to expect it regularly rather than marvel at it as an outlier, he essentially said he’s still looking for proof it could become Fields’ new normal.
That game wouldn’t be remarkable for top mobile quarterbacks Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts and Josh Allen. That’s pretty much what they’ve averaged this season.
“The consistency piece — just continue to do it,” Eberflus said. “Stack another game just like that, where you have that running and the passing, the accuracy, the touchdowns, the no turnovers. Let’s stack two like that, and that would be a good start.”
Stringing together two would mean doing it again when the Bears visit the Packers. But even then, it’s unlikely that acing the final exam would earn Fields an A for the season. If every game counts, as the Bears say, this one is worth about 8% of his total grade.
The Falcons game was Fields’ eighth with at least 300 yards passing and rushing combined (third this season) in 37 career starts, and the Bears had a chance in all of those. They’re 2-6 when he puts up 300 total yards, and four of the losses were by three points or fewer.
He has 17 starts throwing for under 170 yards (four this season), 16 in which he completed fewer than 60% of his passes (six this season) and 17 with a sub-80 passer rating (six this season). So there’s quite a bit on the wrong side of the ledger.
He did have back-to-back explosive games early in the season against the Broncos and Commanders, but those are two of the worst defenses in the NFL. What he did against the Falcons was more impressive because they have a top-10 defense.
Nonetheless, to this point, that type of performance has been sporadic. So while Eberflus was aware of the “We want Fields” chants Sunday at Soldier Field, he’s not ready to make that call.
“We’ll talk about all those big-picture questions after the season, with Ryan and myself, and we’ll see where it goes,” he said. “But we love where his progress is. He’s been more consistent. We like what he’s done the last six games in terms of the turnovers, the sacks, touchdowns, taking care of the football, throwing the ball down the field.”
The six-game stretch Eberflus referred to has taken place since Fields returned from a dislocated thumb on his throwing hand. Injuries are always unfortunate, but the four-game layoff in the middle of the season might have helped Fields by allowing him to step back and reassess.
In those six games, he has completed 60.4% of his passes, averaged 202.2 yards passing and thrown five touchdown passes against three interceptions for an 80.9 passer rating. He also has averaged 65.5 yards rushing and scored three touchdowns and lost two fumbles.
That in itself isn’t good enough to contend for a championship, so Eberflus and Poles would need a lot of faith to believe it’s merely a springboard. The alternative is to use the No. 1 pick on a quarterback, likely USC’s Caleb Williams.
When Fields looks good, as he did Sunday, suspicion seems to swirl around why Getsy has held him back from playing like that more often. When Fields flounders, as he did just two games earlier by completing only 19 of 40 passes against the Browns, the theories shift to Getsy trying to scheme around his limitations.
Either way, it’s obvious that the Fields-Getsy pairing doesn’t work and the Bears can’t bring them back together. It’ll come down to whether Eberflus and Poles have conviction in one over the other, or neither.
Eberflus gave Getsy a lot of credit for the 37 points against the Falcons but wouldn’t commit when asked if his job is secure for next season.
“Any question like that, I’m going to answer it the same way: It’s just going to be [deferred] till next week,” he said. “We’ll look at everything, all-encompassing — players, coaches, everybody. We’ll sit down and have evaluations with everybody, and we’ll do that next week.”
The question wouldn’t come up if keeping Getsy was obvious, and there would be no reason to avoid it if there was no doubt about him staying.
Eberflus has excelled calling the defense this season, and that has been his specialty throughout three decades in coaching. But this job is bigger than any he has ever had, and bigger decisions come with it. He has proved he’s a good defensive coordinator, but getting long-range decisions right is a crucial piece of being a good coach.
