History was made last week when the Chicago Bears fired coach Matt Eberflus — the first time in the franchise’s 105 years it dismissed a head coach midseason.
So where do the Bears go from here? And should fans have any belief that current management will get the coaching hire right this time? Brad Biggs’ overflowing Bears mailbag starts there.
Why should Bears fans believe Ryan Poles and Kevin Warren have the ability to hire a head coach that can transform this franchise? Warren has bungled his only critical job — getting a new stadium. Likewise, Poles has made a number of missteps, including his failure to fire Matt Eberflus at the end of last season. Perhaps the greatest display of this team’s dysfunction was firing Eberflus two hours after sending him out to do a press conference. Not exactly a tandem that inspires confidence. — Jim A., Plymouth, Minn.
Trust me, the Bears have had signs of greater dysfunction than the way they handled things Friday. The process should have been smoother and it’s a little hard to believe they needed to think long and hard over the decision, but much bigger issues are in play now.
It’s absolutely fair to be skeptical about the Bears’ chances of getting the hire right this time around. They haven’t in a long time. Poles will be part of his second coaching search, and this will be the first time Warren has been involved. The team president/CEO made it crystal clear in his remarks Monday that he will own a major voice in the process. I’m not convinced this will be the most attractive opening in the league, either, certainly not to every candidate. To some, it very well could be.
The Bears do seem sort of stuck in their quest for a new stadium, but there was at least a breakthrough last month as they finally reached agreement on taxes for the property they own in Arlington Heights. That’s a small matter as long as the focus remains on a downtown site.
Having another shot at the hiring process, in theory, allows Poles to lean on experiences he acquired the last time and on dealings he has had in general since.
“The most critical thing is I know, from the roster we have right now, exactly what this team needs because of the core group we have here,” Poles said Monday. “Before, that was not really the case — understanding who was going to be here. It was a really tough situation to walk into. So knowing exactly the core of our team and what traits are going to help get that team to be a championship-caliber roster.”
The roster, with quarterback Caleb Williams, is in a better spot than it was in 2022, when the Bears were seeking to replace coach Matt Nagy, were pressed against the salary cap and needed a teardown. They have to get it right and find a head coach and staff that can develop Williams.
Are you surprised Kevin Warren is keeping Ryan Poles on board considering he’s got culpability in the team’s performance as well as the selection of Matt Eberflus in the first place? — Orlando S., Chicago
I’m not surprised. In chatting with a wide variety of folks around the league over the last month — when it was becoming increasingly clear that Eberflus wasn’t long for the job — most figured that the Bears would enter the coach-hiring cycle and that Poles would return for a fourth season.
That was the general sentiment of executives from other teams, with the belief that the roster is better than the team’s record indicates and that the fleecing of the Carolina Panthers that included the pick used for Caleb Williams carried weight. It also was noted that in many cases, a general manager gets two shots at hiring a head coach. The wild card, of course, was Warren, who has made it known he wants to be front and center since he was hired to replace Ted Phillips.
Warren endorsed Poles on Monday in an awkward news conference. In fairness, I’m not sure there’s a way for any team to “win” a news conference on the heels of a six-game losing streak and firing the head coach three weeks after canning the offensive coordinator. Too many losses to go around, right?
But Warren made it clear Poles will remain on the job, and he did so early in his extended opening remarks.
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“The next item I want to make sure we are clear about is Ryan Poles is the general manager of the Chicago Bears, and he will remain the general manager of the Chicago Bears,” Warren said. “Ryan is young, he is talented, he is bright, he is hard-working, he has done everything in his power on a daily basis to bring a winner to Chicago.
“I am confident in Ryan. My faith remains strong in Ryan. As leader of our football operations department and as our general manager, Ryan will serve as the point person on our upcoming search for a permanent head football coach. We will work in tandem.”
If Warren planned to reboot the entire football operation, the Bears could have released Poles as well. If he wasn’t certain about which direction he would go at the end of the season, he could have said the football operation remains under evaluation.
Warren chose to back Poles, and all signs point to them having a pretty good working relationship over the last two years. It doesn’t make sense to me for Warren to complete an evaluation of Poles based on five games with an interim head coach in place, so I don’t believe the stretch run will factor into Poles’ future.
About the only scenario I can see a potential change happening is if the Bears target a head coaching candidate who has enough cachet and juice to request his own handpicked GM. In that instance, who knows what could shake out? Would Warren be comfortable with a candidate seeking that kind of control? I don’t know the answer to that.
I don’t see Warren saying he wants to make it “clear” Poles will remain the GM and then reversing course after the season. Poles will have pressure on him. No question about it. He has turned over the roster in three seasons, has made some key additions and has a young quarterback the Bears need to keep on an ascending trajectory. He has heavy lifting to do to improve the offensive line, and as Warren noted, he will have salary-cap flexibility and extra draft capital.
It will be an offseason of momentum for the Bears — one direction or the other — and Poles needs some big hits for the team to close the gap with the rest of the NFC North.
A number of people think firing Matt Eberflus early gives the Bears an advantage in investigating/finding the next coach. I’m not so sure. Does it give potential coaches a chance to research the Bears, which would let them decide if they even want the job? — Dave K., Albuquerque, N.M.
If firing a head coach in season provided a tangible benefit, you’d see a lot more interim coaches every year and less action on Black Monday. The Bears will try to get ahead, and that starts with organizing precisely how they want to tackle this project.
They can explore backgrounds of potential candidates and seek input from contacts. They can meet with coaches who aren’t currently employed by other NFL teams. They can talk to college coaches, although I tend to doubt they head down that route. They can carefully construct a checklist of things they must have in their next coach.
There’s a lot of work to do, and the Bears should be prepared to hit the ground running once the season ends Jan. 5 at Lambeau Field. But I’m with you, I don’t believe advance preparation time is a game changer.
Let’s say the Bears go 3-2 over the remaining five games with one of the victories coming in Lambeau Field the last game of the season, and the entire locker room responds to Thomas Brown as a leader of men. Does this scenario make it hard for the front office not to bring him back as the head coach next season? How much input will Caleb Williams have in who the next head coach is? If Williams continues to ascend and lets Ryan Poles know he prefers to stick with Brown, do the Bears have to oblige QB1? — Corey S.
The Bears would need to do something extraordinary in the final five weeks for the team to remove Brown’s interim tag at the end of the season. It’s not impossible, but they would have to look like a completely different team — and that will be measured in victories, not silver linings.
It’s a great showcase opportunity for Brown. It’s more than two or three games, which is all some interim coaches get, and he definitely has gotten the offense out of the rut it was in under Shane Waldron. The offense still needs to be better, and the Bears will have to win for him to make a compelling case to skip a full-blown coaching search.
Brown is an impressive guy, but the franchise is at a crossroads and needs to make the right decision at a point where it has made the wrong one time after time. I’m interested to see how the locker room responds to Brown and if things quiet down. It has been loud in the last month-plus, and I’m not talking about outside noise but noise inside the walls of Halas Hall.
Brown has a lot of work to do to get this roster moving in the right direction against a challenging schedule, although Sunday’s game at San Francisco doesn’t appear nearly as daunting as it did before the season or even a few weeks back.
I don’t believe it’s wise to give Williams input in the hiring process. Does it make sense to keep him informed and let him know why the team is going in a certain direction? Absolutely. But empowering a 23-year-old quarterback at the end of his first season to have a voice in the selection of the next coach would be an error, and off the top of my head I can’t recall something like that being done around the league.
What are the possibilities the Bears can trade for a head coach? Might we be looking at future Bears coach Kyle Shanahan on the opposite sideline this Sunday when they play the 49ers? — R.J., St. Charles
I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Shanahan is 69-58 as the 49ers coach with two Super Bowl appearances and an 8-4 postseason record. This season has been a mess, and I don’t think a team has been hit harder by injuries to marquee players than the 49ers. There’s no way the organization would cast blame on Shanahan for being dealt setback after setback this season.
The 49ers nearly traded coach Jim Harbaugh to the Cleveland Browns in 2014. All sides refuted the story at the time, but former Browns executive Joe Banner said earlier this year that a deal, which would have involved multiple draft picks, was nixed by Harbaugh. You can trade a player without his approval. You can’t trade a coach if he’s unwilling to go.
I don’t see any chance on this earth the 49ers would consider trading Shanahan — and IF they did, what’s the asking price? Two first-round draft picks plus what else? Why would Shanahan want to go to a team that all of a sudden would be handicapped with a lack of draft capital when he’s already with a team that should be a contender again when it’s healthy in 2025?
Trading for a coach, as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers once did with Jon Gruden in 2002, is exceedingly rare. The Bucs gave the Oakland Raiders two first-round picks, two second-rounders and $8 million. I think it’s fantasyland to wonder about the Bears trading for their next head coach. But, hey, dare to dream.
It always seemed odd that Ryan Poles hired Matt Eberflus only two days after Poles himself was hired and other head coaching candidates had already been interviewed before Poles was hired. In that setting, how on earth could Poles have successfully concluded Eberflus was the right choice? — Pat R., Chicago
Folks have asked about this for a while, and the overarching issue is the organization decided to conduct searches for the GM and coach concurrently after firing Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy. The Bears didn’t want to miss an opportunity to touch base with head coaching candidates who could be scooped up by other teams, so as they tackled the process with the help of consultant Bill Polian, they worked through GM and coaching candidates simultaneously.
The Bears were one of four teams that hired a new GM in that cycle. The Pittsburgh Steelers changed GMs after the 2022 draft, promoting Omar Khan in May after Kevin Colbert retired, but the Steelers weren’t in that cycle at the end of the 2021 season. This was the timeline for those hires:
- New York Giants: Joe Schoen, Jan. 21
- Bears: Poles, Jan. 25
- Minnesota Vikings: Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, Jan. 26
- Las Vegas Raiders: Dave Ziegler, Jan. 30
Those four teams were among nine in the hiring cycle for a head coach. The Buccaneers promoted Todd Bowles to head coach in March after Bruce Arians retired. This was the timeline for those nine hires:
- Bears: Eberflus, Jan. 27
- Denver Broncos: Nathaniel Hackett, Jan. 27
- Giants: Brian Daboll, Jan. 28
- Raiders: Josh McDaniels, Jan. 31
- Jacksonville Jaguars: Doug Pederson, Feb. 4
- Miami Dolphins: Mike McDaniel, Feb. 6
- Houston Texans: Lovie Smith, Feb. 7
- New Orleans Saints: Dennis Allen, Feb. 8
- Vikings: Kevin O’Connell, Feb. 16
As you can see, it wasn’t a great cycle when you consider the success of the hires. Bowles, Daboll, Pederson, McDaniel and O’Connell are the only ones remaining in their jobs, and Daboll and Pederson appear to be on thin ice.
Poles conducted interviews with Eberflus, Dan Quinn and Jim Caldwell in the two days between his hiring and the selection of Eberflus. The Bears had given him feedback on the 10 coaching candidates they interviewed before they hired Poles, a list that also included Bowles, Daboll, Hackett, Pederson, Brian Flores, Leslie Frazier and Byron Leftwich.
When asked if he had a chance to perform a more expansive search, Poles said: “I was given the opportunity. I found him (Eberflus).”
It’s not like Eberflus came out of left field. His name had been in the hiring cycle for a while. He was also a finalist for the Jaguars job that eventually went to Pederson. In 2021, Eberflus got head coaching interviews with the Texans, Los Angeles Chargers and New York Jets. In 2019, the Browns interviewed him to be their head coach.
Poles had a little bit of a relationship with Eberflus before their pairing, and Eberflus was on Poles’ radar before the Bears hired him as GM. It’s not like they steered Poles directly to hiring Eberflus, and that’s why he has some blame in this. Did it look odd, as you said? Probably not the norm, but the Bears aren’t the only team to run GM and coaching searches at the same time. There are examples of teams hiring the coach first and then a GM, which is definitely out of the norm.
It didn’t work out for the Bears, and with the benefit of hindsight, the Vikings appear to be the only team that made a slam-dunk hiring in that cycle with O’Connell, who has a 30-16 regular-season record and is a leading candidate for Coach of the Year honors this season. That’s often the way it goes: One or two teams get the coaching hire right, and in two or three years, the rest of the teams wind up back in a familiar position — posting a “Help Wanted” sign to begin a new search.
Do Virginia and George McCaskey have any self-awareness as to how screwed up their stewardship of this franchise has been? Do they realize they are the X-factor? Do they believe in any accountability for themselves? — Steve, Chicago
While we didn’t hear from the McCaskeys on Monday, I’m quite certain ownership is cognizant of the team’s ongoing struggles. These are owners who live in the community — you can’t say that about every NFL team — and they’ve been part of the organization their entire lives. There’s no way of telling how heavily the Bears’ failure to achieve success weighs on them.
The franchise has not had consecutive winning seasons since 2005-06. Before that you have to go back to 1994-95 (consecutive 9-7 seasons) for the previous time the Bears finished above .500 in back-to-back years. That’s an extended period of mediocrity, and there’s no way to sugarcoat it. The Bears haven’t won a playoff game (two wild-card round appearances) since George McCaskey was promoted to chairman before the 2011 season, and they’re one loss from ensuring their 12th non-winning season in the last 14 years.
None of this is lost on ownership, and that’s probably one reason the team fired its head coach in season for the first time in its history. I’ll refer back to George’s words in January 2022 after the previous regime was let go.
“We get that a lot of Bears fans are unhappy,” he said, “and we’re unhappy, too, and we’re frustrated and we understand that there’s not really a whole lot that can be said today that’s going to make people feel better about the situation. And it may even be that once the candidates are introduced, people will say, ‘Oh, you picked the wrong guy,’ or, ‘You didn’t get it right,’ or whatever. The only opportunity to produce results is on the field, and that won’t be for some time to come.”
You can probably copy and paste that because I would imagine the next time we hear from George, his messaging will be similar. It’s a bottom-line business and we won’t know for some time if the next coach is the right hire to guide the organization back to winning ways.
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As far as accountability goes, George also was asked about that after the firing of Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy.
“My performance is reviewed by ownership and the board of directors, and ownership has informed me it wishes me to continue in this role,” he said.
I’m reminded of the words 49ers owner Jed York used in January 2017 after the team fired coach Chip Kelly at the end of his first season. Kelly had replaced Jim Tomsula, who was promoted after Jim Harbaugh was fired after the 2014 season.
“I own this football team,” York said. “You don’t dismiss owners.”
A month later, the 49ers hired John Lynch as general manager and Kyle Shanahan as coach, and they’ve been one of the better teams in the league since. They were stumbling until they finally hit on the right combination; Shanahan was their fourth head coach in four seasons.
Owners don’t fire owners.
How do you rate offseason needs? For me it is 1. DT, 2. LT, 3. Edge, 4. IOL, 5. Boundary CB. — @the_zone_blitz1
That’s a great question and one we have several months to kick around. It will depend, to a degree, on what’s available via the draft, free agency, trades and every other imaginable way to acquire players.
It’s probably an error if you’re not starting with offensive line needs. I would have the interior of the O-line atop any offseason list of priorities. The Bears like the toughness interim coach Thomas Brown brings — and I reference that not because Brown is necessarily a candidate to be the next head coach (it’s premature to think too long about that) but because they lack toughness up front. They lack the kind of identity you want in the trenches. They need to improve the interior of the line to give Caleb Williams a firm pocket more consistently.
So that’s No. 1 in my mind because I don’t know that the Bears have a starter from guard to guard on their current roster whom they want to line up for them in Week 1 next season. For reference, look at what the Kansas City Chiefs did after their loss in Super Bowl LV — they totally revamped the interior of their line. Ryan Poles has been through that process before.
After that, I’d place left tackle and defensive tackle in a tie at No. 2, one the team will have to break after determining who is available and fits the schemes they want to run. An edge rusher to pair with Montez Sweat comes shortly after that — and this could be an elevated need if the right player is there (and isn’t there at left tackle or defensive tackle).
I agree that cornerback probably should be on the shopping list, too, but it might be more of a “want” than a “need.” The Bears have depth at that position, but there’s no such thing as having too many cornerbacks. If they switch to a base 3-4 front, that would shake up the order, so a lot will depend on who is the next coach and what kind of personnel he’s seeking on each side of the ball.
What was the tipping point for the Bears to fire a coach midseason versus any other year? — @gravedigger5921
Surely you noticed things were off the rails in the current six-game losing streak. Four of those losses — at Washington, home games against the Packers and Vikings and at Detroit — included end-of-game meltdowns. Leaving a timeout in their pocket at the end of Thursday’s loss to the Lions was the final straw. Throw in poor efforts at Arizona and in a brutal home loss to the New England Patriots, and enough was enough. The Bears needed a change to maintain faith from their players.
Outside of the coach Thomas Brown and development of Caleb Williams, what’s the most important thing to work on the rest of the year? — @prez_hill
You’re probably focused on the development of young players. Five games is a good chunk of the season — nearly one-third — and that’s a chance for players to enter the offseason with the arrow pointing up. I would be looking at right tackle Darnell Wright, cornerbacks Tyrique Stevenson and Terell Smith, wide receiver Rome Odunze and others. How does left tackle Braxton Jones, with one year remaining on his rookie contract, play down the stretch? There’s plenty to evaluate with both young players and veterans alike because a new coaching staff will be thoroughly reviewing game tape of every player.
How involved will George McCaskey actually be in hiring the coach? We are told he won’t be involved but honestly don’t trust him. — @markcomerf82223
I have not heard anyone say the team chairman will not be involved in some manner in the coaching search. It would be crazy to think people McCaskey has hired to work for him would make a final decision without floating it by him first. Think about that. Can you imagine any multibillion-dollar operation making a move of this magnitude without clueing in the top dog on what’s happening? Will McCaskey be hands on in the process? It doesn’t sound like it. But the folks working for him surely will seek his blessing before making a final decision. That only makes sense.
Would the Bears be resistant to hiring a coach who wants a 3-4 defense and who on the front would stay and go in that situation? — @tomomalley23
I don’t believe the Bears will put any limitations scheme-wise on what they’re seeking. I’d imagine they’re open to doing anything. Fortunately, defensive end Montez Sweat is a scheme-transcendent player who can stand out in any system. I believe defensive tackle Gervon Dexter can fit in a 3-4 scheme, and linebackers Tremaine Edmunds and T.J. Edwards also could work if the Bears shift their base front. Remember, with nickel defenses so prevalent, I don’t think the difference with a switch is as great as it would have been years ago. What would both schemes seek? Athletic defenders and — outside of interior defensive linemen — guys with the ability to play in space.
Will the Bears finally prioritize a head coach with previous experience? It’s something they’ve almost always refused to do with the exception of John Fox. — Efren, Chicago
There are valid reasons to consider candidates with head coaching experience. You’re hoping that a guy who has done the job before walks in with an understanding of its challenges, which someone who hasn’t done it before would be encountering for the first time. More goes into that job than a first-timer can ever imagine, and it goes way beyond in-game decisions, clock management and such.
The head coach is the CEO of a coaching staff with 20-plus members and oversees a roster of more than 70 players when you include the practice squad and injured reserve. He is the tone setter and face of the franchise, and that’s a lot, especially if he also is going to call plays for either the offense or defense.
But I think some folks throw around the idea that the Bears need to seek experience because they’re stuck in the past with the idea the Bears are cheap (they’re not but they sure used to be). If you place a significant emphasis on head coaching experience, you’re cutting out up-and-coming prospects.
Consider the rest of the NFC North. The Lions (Dan Campbell), Vikings (Kevin O’Connell) and Packers (Matt LaFleur) all look like they’re headed to the playoffs, and all three were first-time head coaches when they were hired, although Campbell had the interim head coach title in 2015 with the Miami Dolphins after Joe Philbin was fired.
Look around the league at the eight division leaders:
- AFC East: Bills, Sean McDermott
- AFC North: Steelers, Mike Tomlin
- AFC South: Texans, DeMeco Ryans
- AFC West: Chiefs, Andy Reid
- NFC East: Eagles, Nick Sirianni
- NFC North: Lions, Campbell
- NFC South: Buccaneers, Todd Bowles; Falcons, Raheem Morris (tie)
- NFC West: Seahawks, Mike Macdonald
Six of the eight divisions are led by teams that hired a first-time head coach. Reid, Bowles and Morris are the only names on the list who had previous head coaching experience. That tells me that seeking a head coach with experience in the role isn’t necessarily a great prerequisite. Is it reason not to consider a retread? Of course not. The Bears need to find the best coach — period — and that can come from all sorts of backgrounds.
In-game mismanagement aside, a big part of Matt Eberflus’ downfall was the bad decisions he made when building his staff. How do teams look at coaches’ networks and potential hires during the interview process? — Marc H., Chicago
That’s a significant part of the interview process. Coaches look to line up assistants who are inclined to come with them, and teams want to know what the vision is for staff hires. A huge question for a defensive-minded head coach is who he will target as the offensive coordinator. It’s the reverse for an offensive-minded head coach.
Agents can influence this process, working to align a head coaching candidate with clients who could be potential coordinator hires. The more stops a new head coach has had in his career, the larger his network of contacts will be. That’s one of the challenges for coaches hired from the college ranks. Sometimes they don’t have a deep NFL network. This will, no doubt, be something the Bears explore as they go through the process.
With Matt Eberflus gone, will we see Eric Washington be more aggressive calling plays? And will he continue the Terell Smith/Tyrique Stevenson rotation? — Nick, Crystal Lake
That’s a question you can bank on every time there is a change in defensive play callers. Will the next guy be more aggressive? Will he press the gas pedal like Buddy Ryan did once upon a time? The Bears were not a blitz-heavy defense under Eberflus, but they used pressure effectively earlier in the season when they were playing pretty well on that side of the ball and they sent more than four rushers more often than most people probably imagine.
You’ll recall the Bears brought a six-man pressure against the Packers at the end of the Week 11 game at Soldier Field. Defensive tackle Gervon Dexter got a big hit on Jordan Love but not until just after the ball was out. Cornerback Jaylon Johnson, locked in man-to-man coverage, lost his footing and it resulted in a 60-yard gain for Christian Watson.
Through Week 13, the Bears have rushed more than four defenders 23.1% of the time, which ranks 22nd in the NFL. Considering Washington’s background, I doubt we’ll see a major uptick in pressure. He counts Rod Marinelli and Ron Rivera as mentors, and they never blitzed a ton. He came from the Buffalo Bills, who have been selective about rushing more than four under coach Sean McDermott. The Bills are blitzing 18.2% of the time this season, 29th leaguewide.
As far as the rotation at cornerback with Stevenson starting and rotating every two series with Smith, that’s a good question. We’ll have to wait and see.