The Chicago Bears are sitting at 0-2, and things do not look good with the Kansas City Chiefs coming up next. The team needs to rebound in a big way, but it does not feel as though it is coming. It is only the early portion of his second season, but Matt Eberflus is 3-16 as a head coach, and he is staring down another losing season.
There are starting to become a lot of signs that his team is not going to improve. Why should fans be worried about Matt Eberflus?
3. The Chicago Bears have loads of missed tackles and penalties
The biggest thing you hear about with Matt Eberflus for the past two years has been his HITS principle. He preaches hustling, intensity, technique, and smarts on the football field. In his second year, that sounds great, but we have not seen this at all.
The Bears defense ranks eighth in penalties allowed and seventh in yards. Their offense ranks above average, but their penalties have been even costlier, with key false starts or holding penalties that kill drives. W
Worse than that, the Bears' defense ranks second in missed tackles with 21. They are not a sound or crisp team. You could argue they play intense due to the penalties, but they do not play smart or with technique.
The Bears defense ranks last in quarterback hits, and they are worst in quarterback rating allowed. This was supposed to be the strong point of the Matt Eberflus defense, and so far, it is looking worse with every week. Eberflus came in and preached that he would build a team that is sound with fundamentals and playing the right way. This year we have seen anything but, and that has to be alarming now that he has taken the time to bring in his style of players.
2. The Chicago Bears invested in the wrong areas
The Chicago Bears appear to have allowed Matt Eberflus to be too involved in the decision-making when it comes to free agency. The Bears big moves reflect a linebacker coach turned defensive coordinator turned head coach. Ryan Poles spent big on Tremaine Edmunds after already adding TJ Edwards.
The issue is that because Eberflus is a linebackers coach, and this is his specialty, he probably could have gotten much more out of much less resource-wise. The thought would be that he and Dave Borgonzi, a well-regarded linebacker coach could get solid play out of someone like say, Jack Sanborn. Between Jack Sanborn and Noah Sewell, the Chicago Bears would have one of the cheapest linebacker rooms in the NFL, and it would have cost them a fifth-round pick between the two.
Instead, they are some of the better backups on a team that has holes throughout the roster. The Chicago Bears having the deepest linebacker room after hiring a linebacker coach tends to add up to something. Eberflus thought that he could get by with late summer signings and depth pieces on the defensive line when this is where the assets needed to go.
Eberflus is a good linebackers coach, but he has not improved any other areas and has spent too much time and resources building up his favorite area. This shows that while he wants to be the CEO of the team, he still has his eyes too narrow.
1. The Chicago Bears need to find an identity
When you think of the Bears roster, you do not think of a strong identity. One of the weird things about the Bears is passing on some players because they do not fit the culture, then adding players such as Chase Claypool and Yannick Ngakoue, who have been disregarded by other teams because they did not fit the culture.
Matt Eberflus is trying to build up the culture with his big decisions, but in the minor ones, he is slapping that idea in the face. Ngakoue was a main culprit of missed tackles, and a couple of them were against Baker Mayfield. He has been questioned for his hustle and intensity on past teams.
Chase Claypool had a sit-down meeting with the coach and GM in week one. However, he still played. Equanimous St. Brown did not, even though he encapsulates the HITS principle. He also is the best blocker between Claypool and Velus Jones, but the Bears keep asking those two to block instead.
Matt Eberflus is preaching one thing and doing another. When another player gives a little less effort, will he be benched? Will he fear anything? Everything Eberflus talked about was the punishment for situations like these two, but we have seen him let it slide because he needs them on the field. This will not work in the long term.