Bear Digest

Why Bears Hot Seat Won't Actually Be Too Hot

The idea Matt Eberflus and Ryan Poles on the hot seat to succeed after their QB decision might be true for the real NFL world but not in Bears Town.

Gene Chamberlain

Why Bears Hot Seat Won't Actually Be Too Hot
Why Bears Hot Seat Won't Actually Be Too Hot /
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A video making the rounds Monday of RG III rambling incessantly about Caleb Williams refusing to come to Chicago did have one bit of redeeming value.

He said one thing in the entire video worthwhile. It isn't worth remembering it in the context of how he said it, but should be a true statement by all regular forms of logic.

It brought up the possibility of Matt Eberflus and Ryan Poles being in the hot seat.

"Because Ryan Poles and Matt Eberflus, the head coach of the Chicago Bears, they're in a lame duck season," RG III said. "They have to win this year or they're going to get fired."

No one has said they're getting fired if something goes wrong but it's easy to see why that would be assumed after what would be a failed Year 3 of the great rebuild.

Discounting the fact that a lame duck is someone who is already leaving and going through the motions but a coach on the hot seat is entirely something else—someone who might get fired—RG III's point needs to be considered.

This was repeated in relation to Eberflus, by controversial Colin Cowherd of Fox Sports on Tuesday.

After building up all the changes Poles made, Cowherd said: "Now it's not perfect. I wish they had an offensive (head) coach. I wish they didn't have a defensive coach on the hot seat who could be out in November if things go sideways."

This should be the case, which isn't necessarily good for the franchise. 

Can't Beat the Packers

Poles and Eberflus are going into their third year together and forget about taking the North and not giving it back; they haven't beaten the Green Bay Packers yet.

Even Matt Nagy managed to do this, and under Ryan Pace it happened twice. And the Poles-Eberflus regime didn't even have to face Aaron Rodgers in two of those games. 

Even John Fox beat the Packers when Pace was GM.

So, of course this should turn up the temperature on the proverbial seat. Getting a rookie phenom at QB should do the same. They have someone they sought out at QB so it should be prove it or lose it time. Right?

That heat won't be up too high, though, and barring a totally unexpected meltdown both Eberflus and Poles will be back here next year. 

Here's why: It's the Bears and they have a history.

Choosing to go with a rookie quarterback will actually buy the two an extra season. It won't work the other way, even if Williams does what most rookies do and struggles as he adjusts to playing in a grown man's league against talented players on even the worst teams he faces.

Williams is set up better than most rookies are for surrounding talent, at least on paper. Of this there can be little doubt.  

However, the Bears have been through two straight situations where the coaching staff got axed one year into a new first-round quarterback's career. 

Barring a totally unforeseen collapse of the team back to playing at their pathetic 2022 level, expect they would give Eberflus a second year with Williams just to break the cycle of one year with the new QB and you're fired.

Whether correct or not, the change in coaches after one year was perceived as a major reason for Fields struggling despite having all the physical tools. 

The breakup always hurts the kids worse than the parents.

Mitchell Trubisky's failures as a downfield passer had as much to do with his own problems as anything. But it also didn't help him when he had to learn another offense in his second year and play with a different group of coaches.

Either way, Williams is not going to be forced to go one year in an offense and then be forced into something different right away. They won't do it. They can't.

Even by Bears standards, they'd look totally foolish for this to happen again.

It's difficult enough for a rookie to come in and play right away. It shouldn't be expected he'll have all the immediate answers. Just showing he has the talent to succeed is enough for a rookie.

In this case, getting the team somewhere near where they were last year or better would be the baseline when that skill is combined with a better surrounding cast on offense.

Think of it this way. People might get upset if Williams and the team have a mediocre record in 2024. They'll have the pitchforks and torches outside the gates of Halas Hall. But they'd be breaking through the barriers should the Bears force a third straight quarterback to go through one year with a coaching staff and then switch.

It would make the Bears a national embarrassment even more than they are. They would be an international embarrassment, a galactic embarrassment if not a universal embarrassment.

There's always the possibility they'd get rid of Eberflus and make Shane Waldron into the head coach and keep the same offense, but that's carrying things too far into the future to ponder. 

My head hurts already thinking about now and the near future let alone Futurama Bears. No one knows whether Waldron is even an answer on offense, let alone head coaching material. Seahawks followers on social media were applauding when the Bears hired him and not because they suddenly had become Bears fans.

George Won't Do It

Besides all of this, the fact remains George McCaskey put this situation in place with his hiring of Poles and essentially Eberflus. He and Bill Polian chose the two—or at least they chose Poles and then gave him a choice of one of their three coaching finalists.

McCaskey is not going to blow up his creation with yet another rash act. 

Remember, he took over and within a year fired GM Jerry Angelo. They hired Phil Emery as GM, who hired Marc Trestman as coach instead of Bruce Arians. Then Emery and Trestman were quickly out the door. Then came resets with the coaches and quartebacks after one year and nothing has worked.

Kevin Warren might be the team president and is in charge now, but one thing hasn't changed: He still answers to McCaskey and that's who is going to look like a total fool if they fire Eberflus and Poles after another quarterback has had one year to try and develop under his first NFL coaching staff.

The hot seat isn't going to get too uncomfortable unless Eberflus sets himself ablaze by fouling up the defense, and that's not likely. They already were among the NFL's best defense over the last half of last season.

So while RG III and Cowherd are essentially right thinking the Bears coach and/or GM should be in the hot seat, it must be remembered this is the Bears and everything associated with their bumbling, stumbling and losing past needs to be considered.

Expect that Eberflus and Poles bought themselves at least one more year after this one by making their decision to draft Williams and trading Fields, because the franchise doesn't want to see this No. 1 overall pick circling down the same drain where the guy wearing jersey No. 1 went.

If you're reading this from some other city, the logic might not make sense.

If you lived in Chicago and witnessed what you have, it makes total sense.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.

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