Matt Eberflus’s defensive coordinator left the team under what can, at best, be considered troubling circumstances. His starting quarterback, earlier in the week, casually placed his offensive coaches under the tank treads before walking back his comments. Then, the team got absolutely pummeled by the Kansas City Chiefs, 41–10, in what ended up being, quite mercifully, the second-biggest blowout of the weekend.
While the Bears are not the worst 0–3 team in the NFL, they are the closest to what we might consider a team in crisis, a team that will have to make a major decision to avoid taking on water. Just from a sheer workload perspective, losing a coordinator in the middle of the season is disastrous. A coach’s time is already divided into toddler-birthday pizza-sized pieces without the stressors of a full-time play-calling role and a deeper responsibility with the creation of a game plan. This coming week, the Bears take on a winless Broncos team that just surrendered 70 points. The optics of losing that game after this loss will plunge the Bears’ organization from disappointment into something of a glass house on fire (note to self: Google whether you can melt a glass house).
Chicago is not the kind of place that would make a coaching change in-season, so Eberflus needs to realize what so few coaches do: If he doesn’t do something now, he’s simply making the inevitable less palatable. I’ve spoken to coaches who can pinpoint the moment that their coaching tenure has gone impossibly awry, and I’m always amazed at how many of them simply accept the impending firing squad instead of trying to reverse their circumstances.
