Matt Eberflus: Time to Hit the Panic Button on Chicago Bears Head Coach?

Matt Eberflus had all-time low expectations once he came into the head coaching role for Matt Nagy in 2022. Yet the turnout couldn’t be any worse. When Chicago fans thought it couldn’t get any worse after moving on from Matt Nagy, it somehow got worse. Eberflus came into town on his high horse talking about "bring your running shoes" (to his players) in his first interview, and what does he have to show for it?

Matt Eberflus: Time to Hit the Panic Button on Chicago Bears Head Coach?

After leading the Bears to a league-worst 27.2 points per game allowed in 2022-23, the Bears seem right back on track to cement themselves as the worst defense in the league. Only to add insult to injury, Matt Eberflus is a defensive head coach, so the defense being a league-worst is all the more embarrassing. Enough time has passed, and enough resources have been poured into the defensive side of the ball to realize that 2022 was likely not a fluke due to the talent levels being too much to overcome and produce results. 

In 2022, the Bears poured both of their second-round picks into the defense and signed Tremaine Edmunds to a monster deal. Yet the defense looks even worse than last year after yielding 30 points to Jordan Love’s Packers in his first-ever start as the season-long starter. 

Simply put, Matt Eberflus has no more excuses if the Bears’ defense is not at the minimum a middle-of-the-pack defense, and the Bears fail to win 5 games, the Bears should be looking for a new Head Coach and General Manager. 

The decision to fire Eberflus shouldn’t be hard at all, despite fans using Alan Williams, the defensive coordinator as a ‘human meat shield’ to express their complaints with the defense. The functional failure of the Bears falls completely and entirely on Matt Eberflus. Eberflus is and should be responsible for the fans’ discontent with Alan Williams, as Eberflus is the sole reason why Williams is in his position. At any point during the offseason, Eberflus could’ve taken the reigns back from Williams, but he decided to continue to hide behind his scapegoat and continue to see the defense be terrible without stepping in. The head coach should be responsible for all of his coordinators, especially if they choose to not call plays and be heavily involved on one side of the ball in particular

If you are still unsure about Matt Eberflus losing his job at the end of the year, ask yourself the question: At any point during Matt Nagy’s career, did he have a defense even remotely close to as bad as the current Bears? Or was the team ever so poorly coached as they currently are? 

If your answer is no, and you wanted the Bears to fire Nagy as badly as every other Bears fan did. It should absolutely be a no-brainer to fire Eberflus if his defense doesn’t shape up quickly. Eberflus should absolutely be fighting for his job in these next 16 games.