THE BEARS ARE BEYOND FIRING EBERFLUS — THEY HAVE DEADENED CHICAGO AGAIN
At some point, fans in America’s worst sports city will grow tired of fanboy media and haunt the franchises that should enlighten their lives — but instead continue to lose and lose for too many years
The pity-party pats on the helmet lasted too long, from enemy linebacker Anfernee Jennings, who was reminding Caleb Williams to hear the booing fans in a disgusted city and asking why he didn’t skip the NFL draft. Can I unleash my mind-crashing belch more simply?
Chicago is a town of sports losers starting with loose-leaf media, a bunch of mopes who will whine and complain about another crippled year — as they whine and complain about all other teams, in the nation’s worst sports town — and don’t know how to fix the perpetual issues other than whining and complaining more. They are fanboys, who tell folks at New Trier and Fenwick how they get into press boxes for free.
I happen to care.
I care about wealthy and sloppy owners who hire incompetents and continue with losing seasons and utter irrationality. These people have taken your money and your energy for decades, with few successes, and we read writers who say the Bears aren’t “dysfunctional” as a franchise that hasn’t won a Super Bowl in almost 40 years. They’re worse than dysfunctional.
Start by firing Matt Eberflus as head coach, preferably today after a 19-3 loss to the lowly, non-Belichick New England Patriots. Then ask why the McCaskeys — who haven’t run the franchise properly long since George Halas died yet know the value is over $6.4 billion — hired a youthful general manager named Ryan Poles to louse up the offensive line and turn Caleb Williams into a dazed scanner of a blue tablet on a disturbed sideline. Nine sacks? He’s on pace to be toppled more than a handful of passers in NFL history. As his father might launch another tweet storm — did you see Carl rave about Washington’s defense during the ill-fated Hail Mary? — the football world saw Drake Maye beat Williams as Jayden Daniels and C.J. Stroud beat him and, soon enough, Jordan Love and Jared Goff and Sam Darnold will beat him. That assumes he doesn’t suffer a concussion or two first and makes way for Tyson Bagent, who also will be massacred.
And try to grasp how this country’s powerful sports dynamic has overtaken Chicago, a flyover hub with atrocious people in charge. Not since the Cubs won eight years ago has the city been more than a sports atrocity. The Bears are doing nothing with Williams, in part because of a weak line but generally because Eberflus has lost control of the offense and couldn’t control the meanderings of the 3-7 Patriots. He won the Heisman Trophy with a spectacular season and has evaporated under the wicked Bearness that has inflicted the city since, well, Mike Ditka was fired. That was January 1993. I was there, watching him disintegrate as he tried to climb into the stands in Tampa, and since then, the Bears have hired Dave Wannstedt, Dick Jauron, Lovie Smith, Marc Trestman, John Fox, Matt Nagy and Eberflus. Everyone should be concerned that Poles, Eberflus and the woeful offensive coordinator, Shane Waldron, all share the same agent, Trace Armstrong, who once played for the Bears and sucks up to the owners.
Who’s next? Other than Virginia McCaskey selling the franchise — really now, Jerry Reinsdorf at 88 and Virginia at 101 kind of says it all — forget about offensive coordinator Ben Johnson leaving the Super Bowl-possible Detroit Lions and joining the Bears. He has made it clear through ESPN that he won’t take a lesser job, with reporter Adam Schefter also referring to the Bears as “dysfunctional.” Lincoln Riley is available — USC doesn’t want him — and at least he understands Williams and how to make the most of him. Lane Kiffin is nuts but he beat Georgia at Ole Miss and has coached everywhere, including the NFL in the late 2000s. Steve Sarkisian? Dan Lanning, at Oregon?
Someone … to try and maximize Williams.
“So this game right here, obviously, as a head football coach, all disappointed and accepting accountability for everything,” said Eberflus, who has failed to do that before. “And then, really just looking inward — myself, first. That’s what I asked the players and coaches to do. We have to take a good, hard look at everything we’re doing.”
Otherwise, we’re left to scan Sid Luckman’s banner sign at Soldier Field, as Fox Sports did for a moment. Speaking of the network, will Tom Brady abandon plans to broadcast the Bears-Packers game next week?
There is nothing more to say about Eberflus, whose defense couldn’t get it done when he has lost all logic with the offense. He is 3-18 in road games. He is 2-10 in the division. Now he is blown out at home with his offense managing 142 yards and Williams going 1 of 14 on third downs.
“Fire ‘Flus!” the fans chanted.
Said Williams: “This game is a lot to learn from, speaking for myself. Other than that, we’ve got to get better with execution, whether the play is good, bad or indifferent. I think it starts there.”
The Bears haven’t won a playoff game since George McCaskey took over the team in May 2011. They’ve only been to the postseason twice since then, failing in 2019 and 2021. In a division of terrific coaches, they are lost. In due time, Williams will mope about his new life in a bad organization and, perhaps, ask for a trade.
Do what the fans want, for a change. Don’t just sit there and count your $6.4 billion. Run the franchise like you care before the politicians bury your stadium aspirations.
Or, the McCaskeys become the next Jerry Reinsdorf.
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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.