CALEB IS 1-2, FIELDS IS 3-0 — AND SOON, MATT EBERFLUS SHOULD BE ON THE HOT SEAT
The Chicago Bears are struggling with the No. 1 overall pick and a weak coordinator, and at some point, the same issues will lead to talk that Williams wants USC's Lincoln Riley as his next head coach
This is how the NFL operates, Chicago. This is how the psyche games work, as fans and media and 1985 wannabes should realize. Someone will have the power with Justin Fields starting 3-0 in Pittsburgh, when we ask once again what is wrong at Halas Hall.
And the power won’t belong to Matt Eberflus, who shouldn’t be a head coach in a division with Matt LaFleur, Kevin O’Connell and Detroit’s offensive coordinator. And it won’t belong to general manager Ryan Poles, who has failed to supply appropriate line protection during a 1-2 start that might be 0-3. And it won’t belong to president and CEO Kevin Warren, who should stop stadium politics and pay attention to the field.
The influence belongs to Caleb Williams.
While he talks to himself on the sideline, hoping he’s still alive in a few weeks, he must wonder why Eberflus and dullard Shane Waldron are in charge of his pro future. He is blessed with a powerful right arm, and yet, the Bears are incapable of utilizing it just as they’ve been incapable with quarterbacks for decades. Williams finally snapped at his positional coach, Kerry Joseph, during a 21-16 defeat in Indianapolis. He threw two interceptions — one within grasp of Rome Odunze, who wasn’t built in a football season — but also threw for 363 yards and two touchdowns while avoiding four sacks and multiple hits from the Colts. He also had the ball slapped away by Laiatu Latu in a fumble that ended the game. Why did he throw 52 times? What, no running game?
“I threw it 52 times? Geez,” Williams said.
At some point, as the Bears slop in last place within the NFC North, there will be questions about Eberflus that have nothing to do with his fancy stylistic change. They can’t finish with another losing record and keep him. If you noticed on the telecast, the cameras showed Williams’ father, Carl, in a booth in Lucas Oil Stadium. From someone who watched his career ascend to a Heisman Trophy and a NIL prince at USC, I know what makes Caleb work. He must like his bosses. Right now, he probably does not, and as the No. 1 overall pick, why wouldn’t he push for a coach he liked and thrived under?
That would be Lincoln Riley, who is precisely the offensive mind who made him shine in Los Angeles and is not long for the Trojans. You don’t think Williams — or his father — would make it known internally that Riley made him historic two years ago? You don’t think the man above everyone, chairman George McCaskey, would listen?
“We left one out there,” Eberflus said. “We’ll look ahead and each guy needs to ask himself how he can get better execution-wise to start getting victories.”
“We’ve got to clue in on a few more details. Make sure we’re on the same page,” Williams said. “Small details. When the boats are flying, the details aren’t as polished as they should be. Internally, we’re excited. But we’re still furious.”
There is time to win two home games against lame teams, the Rams and Panthers. But given the way O’Connell has Sam Darnold performing in Minnesota, and the way LaFleur has the Packers winning without Jordan Love, we will keep asking why the Bears aren’t letting Williams perform his magical tricks. They are turning him into another lackluster Chicago Bear, a mushy and dysfunctional creature for too long in our lives. He doesn’t have solid chemistry with his receivers, including DJ Moore, who famously said last December before Fields was traded to the Steelers: “I don’t know, y’all ask me that what, last week? I’m still like, bruh, where are y’all seeing this? What makes (Fields) not the quarterback of the Chicago Bears right now? … What, there’s like two of them. I don’t think they better than Justin.”
One was Drake Maye. The other was Williams. Fields is solid and efficient with the Steelers, who are coached by Mike Tomlin and coordinated offensively by Arthur Smith. In a 20-10 win over the Chargers, he hit 25 of 32 passes for 245 yards and a touchdown while rushing for another score Sunday. He threw only one interception. He was asked about Williams in his old city. Seems Fields still talks to folks in the locker room.
“Of course, it's just not him, but he's going to get most of the blame just because of the position he's in," Fields said. “But just as a whole — the guys over there I know — they want to be better, and I think they're going to be better. So, I'm hoping that they start getting (the things) done on offense that they need to do.”
A weekly Williams-Fields update is not what Chicagoans need as they deal with the 121 (or more) losses of the White Sox, another postseason miss by the Cubs, a lot of crapola from the Bulls and losing from the rebuilding Blackhawks. When he drives in his car and makes his way through the city, Williams knows he has more pressure than even the most corrupt politician. He never felt that way in L.A. Heaven knows how he’ll handle it. But if he almost looked ready to cry on the bench in the final two minutes, he is welcomed to hell on football earth.
Why didn’t Odunze give him the football after a fourth-quarter touchdown? Why did Caleb want it so badly? The Bears trailed 14-9. “Rome’s keeping that one. That was our thing the whole week,” he said. Of course, they subsequently missed on the two-point pass conversion.
He will need help. For now, it won’t be Eberflus or Poles or Warren or anyone else.
“This is not who we want to be,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “There were definitely some good things that happened for us. But at the end of the day, it’s about winning football games.”
If they don’t, by the time the NFC North schedule arrives, Illinois will become the Land of Lincoln.
Riley.
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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.