Bear Digest

Why Is Bears Rebuild Taking So Much Longer than Others?

Analysis: The Washington Commanders rebuilt and their offense is lighting it up while the Bears rebuilt and three years later are mired. But Washington did one thing the Bears didn't.

Gene Chamberlain

How different could things have gone for the Bears three years ago with altered decisions. What if...
How different could things have gone for the Bears three years ago with altered decisions. What if... / Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images
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No sooner had the final gun gone off on the Washington Commanders' win Monday night over the Cincinnati Bengals, then judgment day had become apparent for the current Bears regime.

D-Day for the Bears is Oct. 27.

This is the critical date for coach Matt Eberflus, offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, GM Ryan Poles and actually also for team owner George McCaskey.

On that day the Bears travel to Washington to face quarterback Jayden Daniels. From the look of things Monday night, the Bears defense will be severely challenged even though they are facing a team they destroyed 40-20 in a night game at the same stadium last year.

This game will be a true measuring stick in so many ways.

Pushing the Offense Off a Kliff

The first way is for Eberflus, who coached an easy win over that Washington team a year ago. He interviewed Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury for Bears offensive coordinator. At that point, it seemed almost a fact-finding mission aimed at learning what Kingsbury knew of quarterback Caleb Williams. Waldron was Eberflus' guy, even though Kingsbury had both head NFL coaching experience and extensive play calling experience. He also had some experience working with Williams in an offense at USC under Trojans coach Lincoln Riley last year similar to what they're running with the Commanders.

The Bears would not keep their new QB in an offense he played in for three years in college. They would bring in the former Seahawks offensive coordinator who had success working with Geno Smith but no experience turning rookie quarterbacks into successes.

Now, who looks like the success after just three weeks?

Kingsbury's team was not as well equipped as the Bears offense. They definitely had one top receiver in Terry McLaurin, whose stats are very similar to DJ Moore's. But the rest of the receiver corps was largely untested or pedestrian, beyond tight end Zach Ertz. And this 33-year-old Ertz moves more like a mastodon than the seam threat he was in his Eagles days.

They do have Austin Ekeler in the backfield as a receiver/running threat. The Bears also could have signed Ekeler but they signed D'Andre Swift, instead.

Ekeler has nine catches for 121 yards to Swift's six catches for 48 yards. Ekeler has 15 more rushing yards than Swift, even though he has started only one game and Swift started three for the Bears.

Yet, without a Keenan Allen type of threat as a second receiver, and without a first-round receiver on the roster like Rome Odunze, Daniels, Ekeler and running back Brian Robinson have been able to put up 38 on the road against a Bengals team that just came within an official's flag of beating Kansas City. Admittedly, that was a result like every Kansas City game. Still, it's impressive to score so many points against a Kansas City defense. And Washington outpointed them .

Washington had 20 against Tampa Bay in a loss and 21 against the Giants in a win.

Kingsbury's offense is ranked sixth in the league after three weeks, fifth in scoring. Put an offense like that with this Bears defense and the Bears might even be able to get out of last in the NFC North.

Their chances of doing that appear slim now if you look at power rankings. On SI.com's weekly power rankings, five of the top three teams are from the NFC North and obviously none are the Bears. They'll have to play all those teams twie in the season's second half, so this first half of the Bears schedule is the soft, easy half. And they're 1-2.

The offense of Eberflus/Waldon, meanwhile, was so excited about scoring a touchdown  through the air Sunday that they couldn’t get their two-point conversion organized without wasting a timeout they eventually needed.

The Bears offense has produced one point more for three total games than the Commanders did Monday in one game.

Nice offensive coordinator decision. That's Eberflus' second offensive coordinator, too.

Man with the Plan

It would be easy to put it all on Daniels, conclude the Commanders got the new C.J. Stroud, a Wunderkind and Williams won't be as talented but that's doing a disservice to Williams. He's only had three games to prove himself and, after all, he's only running Waldron's offense and not getting to work in the one he already knew.

Rather, the blame here goes to the second person in this blame receiving line. That would be Poles.

Washington's head coach is one of the three offered up for the Bears to choose from by the "council of five," who decided on Poles as Bears GM. This committee included hired hand Bill Polian and McCaskey, who basically were the decision makers.

Poles could have had former Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, the former Falcons head coach. He wanted Eberflus. Now Quinn is coaching Daniels, coaching a 2-1 team after he already had a reputation as one of the league's best defensive coordinators in Seattle and Dallas.

There's no doubt Poles got himself a good defensive leader in Eberflus. His defense has kept them in two losses when they had offensive problems of two different types. They knew this about Eberlfus already, though.

Eberflus apparently didn't know enough about offense because he had Luke Getsy as offensive coordinator, then wanted Waldron and not Kingsbury to run the offense.

And the other co-decision made by Eberflus and Poles? Justin Fields had to go.

Fields hasn't been the be-all end-all QB for Pittsburgh this year. He has 112 fewer passing yards than Williams does and the same number of touchdown passes. He also has only 23 yards more rushing than Williams. Fields is taking what's there as a runner and passer, making the short passes and completing 73.9% when he completed 60.3% for the Bears in three years. He has learned from his 41 career starts and from working with Arthur Smith in an offense every bit as conservative as the one he was in under Luke Getsy.

It would have been very easy to keep a quarterback like that, pair him with a dominant defense and still draft Odunze or even trade back and get Marvin Harrison Jr.

Poles wanted Williams and Odunze and they very well might eventually become all the rage. They show flashes, but they're not running a Kingsbury offense. They're in one without a running attack, with an offensive line that has allowed a league-high 13 sacks.

Yet, their GM is the offensive line savant. Maybe he could have used some of the extra picks they could have had by keeping Fields for better offensive linemen, too. Either way, draging Williams into this argument is unfair to him and Fields never did know how to win in the fourth quarter anyway. Except, now Pittsburgh is 3-0 and all three of those came in tight, hard-fought battles. And Williams' team just lost two tight games in the fourth quarter.

Ultimately, it's not fair to judge Poles based on a decision between Williams and Fields because Fields has had 3-plus years and Williams three-plus games.

Instead, judge based on Williams and Daniels.

Let George Do It

Remember again, all of this transpired because McCaskey waved his hand and decided it must.

Eberflus and Waldron, not Kingsbury and Quinn. And Williams when they could have drafted Stroud or this year Daniels instead of Williams and had even more draft picks.

Well, Williams needs time to work into the offense? What, and Daniels didn’t?

Instead of Poles, the Bears could have had Omar Khan, whose Steelers are 3-0, and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, whose Vikings are 3-0 and the talk of the league. They talked to both those GMs but by George they wanted Poles, and the Bears are 11-25 since then.

It takes a while to rebuild a team, though.

At least that's what Poles and the Bears have continued to tell us over the last three years and apparently McCaskey agreed.

Look at the Washington Commanders again.

They just beat Cincinnati on the road. The Bears in 36 games under Poles/Eberflus have yet to beat a team with so much firepower on the road. They almost did in Detroit. The key word being "almost."

But maybe it’s not fair to make the comparison here because Washington not only replaced the coaches, the quarterbacks and many of the players, it also rebuilt this team after replacing the owner.

Now there's a novel thought.

Twitter: BearsOnSI

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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.