Bears’ coaching issues around Caleb Williams threatens to put season in peril

Bears’ coaching issues around Caleb Williams threatens to put season in peril originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago

INDIANAPOLIS — In an offseason of change that was supposed to signal the dawn of a different Bears era, there was one decision to stay the course. The Bears chose to believe that with better talent at key positions and another chance to get the offensive coaching staff right, head coach Matt Eberflus would shine.

An offseason of talk about a new wardrobe, a beard, and polished media skills glossed over the questionable decision by general manager Ryan Poles to stick with Eberflus to be the head coach to start the Caleb Williams era.

Many, myself included, lauded the hire of offensive coordinator Shane Waldron as at least a positive step forward for a talented defensive coordinator still trying to prove he has all the tools needed to be a winning head coach.

But three games into the 2024 season, all the glitz and hype of an offseason of change have faded, and all that remains are poor challenges, wasted timeouts, a 1-2 record, and a worry that Eberflus and Waldron are harming Williams’s early development.

A week after Eberflus made two curious challenges in a 19-13 loss to the Houston Texans, which saw Williams get pressured on 23 of 48 dropbacks, the Bears rolled into Indianapolis to face a Colts team with a porous run defense that was dying to get beat and laid an egg in a 21-16 loss.

The defeat isn’t at the feet of Williams, who played better despite two interceptions, or a defense that bottled up the Colts’ offense outside of a couple of explosive plays.

No, Sunday’s flop against a team that is the definition of NFL “blech” is on Eberflus and Waldron.

Entering Sunday’s game, the Colts had the NFL’s worst run defense. They were giving up over 200 yards per game and were without star defensive tackle DeForest Buckner.

If there were any time for the Bears to get their run game going and make life easier on Williams behind a shaky offensive line, it would be Sunday.

Instead, the Bears asked Williams to throw the ball 52 times. They did so not because the Colts stopped the run but because the Bears refused to even force Indy to prove it could do so.

“I threw the ball 52 times? Jeez,” Williams said after the loss. “I do whatever the team needs. So, if it’s [throwing] 50 times, it’s 50 times. I can’t have the two turnovers with those 50 attempts. And then if it ends up being 10 times, and I complete nine of those 10, and we have 300 yards rushing and four touchdowns, I’m fully aware, fully ready to do whatever the team needs. And so, if it comes down to being 50 attempts and us slinging the ball around, if it comes down to being 10 attempts — it’s whatever the team needs, whatever the team needs to get the win.

“We’ll keep slinging it, we’ll keep working on the run game. We’ll keep getting better, definitely, as an offense. We’re going to get this thing going here soon.”

The Bears’ offseason plan to build around Williams was praised.

With Waldron, one of the NFL’s great teachers and adapters, along with three talented wide receivers and running back D’Andre Swift, the thought was that the Bears could lean on the run game and take the pressure off Williams to start the season. All these tools should have allowed Williams to settle in early and work on polishing his footwork and playing within structure so that he could start to take off as the season went on.

But the opposite has been the case.

In what is becoming a tradition under Eberflus, the Bears have come out of the gates like a hobbled horse and are still searching for their offensive identity—one they had months to iron out under Waldron’s leadership.

Instead, that search for an identity led to Sunday’s fourth-and-goal speed option call from the inch line that was blown up for a loss of 12.

If you look up the definition of a team with no offensive identity, you’ll see a clip of that play.

“I don’t know. Whatever gets us a win,” wide receiver DJ Moore said after the loss when asked about the offense’s identity. “The first win [against Tennessee], the defense and special teams brought us that win and lately they’ve been holding it down and we haven’t. We’ve got to figure out our identity — like, now — for the sake of them.”

Williams said the Bears’ offensive identity is “brewing.” This comes just a few days after Eberflus said they were “working” to figure that out.

Asking your prized rookie quarterback to drop back 60 times (52 passes, four sacks, four plays negated by penalty) behind an offensive line struggling to pass block is a recipe to get him beaten, bruised, and stunt his early development.

Despite the 363 yards passing Sunday, Williams was just 7-for-17 for 181 yards and a pick on passes thrown over 10 yards downfield, per Next Gen Stats. There were some wow plays, but he also had 11 off-target throws, according to ESPN.

The Bears need to protect Williams and help him find his footing, not ask him to shoulder this heavy of a load early in his career when the offense doesn’t even know what it is.

While Waldron will take a lot of the blame, it all comes back to Eberflus, who once again claimed things are not as bad as they look after a deflating loss.

Sound familiar? It should. It was the constant drumbeat of last season, as the Bears took on water for three months before a furious end-of-season run saw them finish at 7-10 and allowed Eberflus to keep his job.

But look around the NFL. Coaching matters more than anything. The Minnesota Vikings are 3-0 with Sam Darnold. The Green Bay Packers have won two straight games with Malik Willis at quarterback. Willis has been in the building for just 27 days. Justin Fields and the Pittsburgh Steelers are 3-0. The Bears’ next opponent, the Los Angeles Rams, just mounted a furious comeback to knock off the San Francisco 49ers despite being without a host of their top players.

What do all those teams have in common? Elite coaching. Kevin O’Connell, Matt LaFleur, Mike Tomlin, and Sean McVay are three of the best in the business.

While Eberflus and the Bears are spending large chunks of the season trying to figure out who they want to be, these coaches are quickly adapting on the fly and winning games without having their best hand.

That’s not to mention the inexcusable blown timeout Sunday after the Bears’ first touchdown. Down 14-3 midway through the fourth quarter, the Bears should have known they would attempt a two-point conversion if they scored a touchdown to cut the lead to three.

Instead, when Williams found Rome Odunze for their first-career score, the Bears trotted out the kicking team first and promptly had to burn a timeout. A shot of the sideline showed some coaches holding up one finger while others held up two.

Having that extra timeout in the back pocket would have proved valuable as the Bears tried to mount a furious late comeback that fell short.

After the loss, Eberflus took the blame for the gaffe and said everyone needed to “be better” from the booth to the sidelines.

That’s all well and good, but the time to “be better” started three weeks ago. It started five months ago when Williams was drafted. It started eight months ago when he was given Year 3 and tasked with building the support system for a potentially “generational” quarterback.

Instead, the Bears are 1-2 and just flopped in a game they had no business losing. The run game has been non-existent, and the search to find out how to get it going was abandoned in favor of asking Williams to drop back 60 times.

In a year that was supposed to be about setting Williams up for a launch into stardom, the Bears’ are already at risk of asking him to shoulder too much too early in an offense with no clear plan of attack and no protection.

Williams’ exceptional talent shines through despite the limitations of the Bears’ offense and the coaching malpractice being committed.

But that’s not good enough for this franchise. Not with the rare opportunity they’ve been presented with Williams.

They spent all offseason building a plan to develop Williams and make it easy for him to start his NFL career. Instead, they are three games in and still have no clue what their offensive identity is.

As a team, the Bears only have one identity right now: They are a lost team behind a head coach and offensive staff with no proof of a plan to get on track and reach the expectations set for this season.

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