HAIL SCARY! THE BEARS DESERVED TO LOSE BECAUSE THEIR COACHES ARE WOEFUL

Tyrique Stevenson slapped the ball and deflected it to Noah Brown, one blunder on a day when Shane Waldron gave the ball to 300-pound Doug Kramer Jr. — a fumble — and watched Caleb Williams struggle

     The ball was thrown short of the goal line, which was disastrous and revealing about the Bears, their oddball coaches, their lack of technique and a game they didn’t deserve to win Sunday. We knew it minutes before, when they somehow had a chance to prevail when Caleb Williams was told to hand off to Doug Kramer Jr., No. 68, who weighs 300 pounds and fumbled away the leather in the darkness of the end zone.

     Kramer is not Refrigerator Perry. Kramer is a bunch of fluff, as we saw on “Seinfeld,” and Shane Waldron should lose his job as offensive coordinator for devising that trash and allowing an all-time dreadful turnover. Williams kept his cool, while wondering why he was credited with the fumble and perhaps wondering why he wasn’t drafted by his hometown team, and he led the Bears downfield to a 15-12 lead over the Washington Commanders. Twenty-three seconds remained.

     That edge wouldn’t last long, in a dilemma that doesn’t speak well for Matt Eberflus and the men who run this team. On the final play, Jayden Daniels rambled and wandered at his own 35-yard line and threw a Hail Mary inside the five. Coached well, Noah Brown slipped behind a crowd of leapers from both teams. The ball bounced off the right hand of cornerback Tyrique Stevenson, the buffoon, who should have batted it down and was seen taunting fans yards away before the play.

     Instead, it deflected to Brown, who was standing by himself and secured an 18-15 victory. The 52-yard play was the NFL’s fifth go-ahead bomb in the final 10 seconds in the last 18 years. Explain the horror, Matt Eberflus.

     “That last play, we practice that play 100 times since we’ve been here,” the head coach said. “I have to look at the execution of that. We have a body on a body. We are boxing guys out like basketball. One guy at the rim that knocks the ball down. We have a back-tip guy that goes behind the pile. We have to deal with that and make sure we’re better the next time.”

     Knock the ball down. Knock the ball down. How could Stevenson focus when he joked with fans? Apologizing later was foolish and an insult to the Internet.

     Kramer? “It’s a one-yard play,” Eberflus said. “A big guy like that taking a dive.”

     Taking a dive. Taking a dive.

     “The comfort level, 100 percent. It didn’t go that way,” Williams said of the fumble. “We’ve got to execute, protect the football. We wanted to get in right there. I know that mistake is bothering (Kramer).”

     It’s a telling reason why the Bears won’t hang in the race of the NFC North, which includes an MVP candidate in Detroit’s Jared Goff, a terrific coach in Matt LaFleur who wins in Green Bay no matter who plays quarterback, and Kevin O’Connell, who is 5-2 in Minnesota. The Bears are coached by a defensive coordinator who allows a back to keep the ball in play rather than spiking it. They are run offensively by Waldron, who is not Kliff Kingsbury, who coaches Daniels and came up with the play that keeps the Bears in last place and keeps the Commanders atop the NFC East.

     “Buy some time and don’t throw the ball out of bounds. Just throw the ball up, give my guys a shot,” Daniels said. “I just heard people screaming and our sideline rushing the field — so, that's how I knew. That’s kind of like a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Not too many people get to experience stuff like that.”

     In the other room was Williams, who must wonder about the Bears and Halas Hall and why they haven’t won a Super Bowl since 1985. “When you have a drive like that and score, and they have a Hail Mary like that, it’s tough. A heartbreak play to have,” he said. And the offensive problems? “That’s just us shooting ourselves in the foot and that comes from details and focus in the game, throughout the week,” he said. “That comes from myself. I’m included in that for sure. Definitely missed a few passes I don’t miss typically so, tough, but very encouraging because we stayed in it.”

     Not encouraging.

     How long did Daniels have the ball? “Over 12 seconds,” Eberflus said.

     Think the Bears would have won if Kingsbury signed in the offseason? Why oh why didn’t he align with Williams, who worked with him when he was a senior analyst at USC and has known him for years? Williams, after all, was known for throwing a Hail Mary at a high school in the nation’s capital. Wouldn’t they have done wonders with each other?

     “Ummm … I’ll just … Not going to get into that. Yeah. Sorry,” Kingsbury said.

     Well, had the Bears hired him, they wouldn’t have handed the ball to Kramer. And Williams would be more advanced as a rookie quarterback than what we concluded most of the game, when he struggled through intense pass-rushing and failed to find receivers across the field. Not until the final minutes did he come through, as if he was developing on his own. That won’t be enough for a team that saw Daniels, despite a rib injury that was bandaged with tape after he was hit, throw for 326 yards and run for 52. Williams hit 10 of 24 passes for 131 yards. “I would say, we’ve got to be better in the first quarter,” he said. And the second quarter. And the third quarter.

     Only the defense saved the Bears. In the end, the defense couldn’t make one damned play that changed the season. Kramer? Why not give the ball to D’Andre Swift, who rushed for 129 yards and scored from 56 yards? Waldron gave it to Kramer, and on the sideline, Williams stormed and began talking to himself. How many times has he self-uttered after seven games?

     Do not blame this loss on Williams, fanboys. His absence of growth is a reflection on the coaches, who are falling in line with the franchise’s lack of quarterbacking success through multiple decades. Why would boss George McCaskey hire Ryan Poles as general manager and allow him to sign Eberflus as the coach — when they wanted a franchise quarterback in Williams? They let the Commanders and coach Dan Quinn hire Kingsbury, part of a staff that has elevated Daniels with a 6-2 record. In three seasons, Eberflus has yet to win a road game against a winning team. He is 14-27.

     He must work with Williams, who eludes rushers and doesn’t make mistakes, while trying to win as the schedule toughens. The Bears play in Arizona next Sunday against Kyler Murray, who beat Tua Tagovailoa in his return to the Dolphins. After a home game against New England, which pretty much ended Aaron Rodgers’ career, the Bears begin nastiness. They will play six games against the Lions, Packers and Vikings. They play in San Francisco. They could finish 8-9.

     Then we’ll begin the Eberflus discussions. How can a team draft Williams with the No. 1 overall pick and not groom him against the best defenses? And how can a team draft Daniels, at No. 2, and watch him tear up the league with considerable guts?

     “That was wild. That was so much fun, and what I love about the team is that we're never out of the fight,” Quinn said.

     We’ll see the Commanders in the playoffs, far away from the Dan Snyder debacle, in their black uniforms and trumpeted jersey names. The social media staff even took a post-game shot at Chicago, something from TV about Daniels being “deathly afraid of green olives.”

     “We’re blessed to have ‘5’ leading this team: The things he can do is special,” Brown said. “I wouldn’t want to play with any other quarterback.”

     “Front-row seats to something amazing,” lineman Sam Cosmi said. “That was just crazy. This will always stick in my head forever. What a moment.”

     The Bears? See if Eberflus and Waldron survive. “Our guys believe in each other,” the head coach said. “They’re a resilient bunch.”

     Not when they return to town. The fans lost resilience in the last century.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.