More Detroit Lions football is right around the corner, and we would never pass up the opportunity to get some intel from the opponent’s perspective. We called on Bill Zimmerman once again from WindyCityGridiron.com to give us some insight into the Chicago Bears, the difference a month makes for a team with an interim head coach, Caleb Williams’ interception-less streak, and what has happened with the defense after such a hot start ahead of this Week 16 matchup.
The Bears season started with promise when they got off to a 4-2 start, and the team looked like it was setting up to be a part of the mix when it came playoff time.
After eight straight losses, and some of them of the heartbreaking variety, what’s just the overall level of confidence in the direction the organization is headed after having so much promise two months ago?
I would say dumpster fire is what fans think of the organization (again). Matt Eberflus is gone, but the attention is now squarely on the shoulders of GM Ryan Poles and the heat is really being turned up on him as well. This season has become a complete disaster and the question is, can you keep the general manager because he made one phenomenal trade with the Carolina Panthers and the rest of his body of work is very pedestrian?
I think about two or three weeks ago, there wasn’t much heat on Poles, but an article by Dan Wiederer in the Chicago Tribune that was well-sourced put a lot of heat on Poles and I think changed people’s perception of the GM. The article was fair but it put two decisions, the hiring of Matt Eberflus and the acquisition of free agent OL Nate Davis, squarely on Poles’ shoulders. Those two people are about the most disliked among Bears fans right now and the quickest way to get fans to sour on Poles is to let them know that those decisions were on him.
It would be interesting to know if those sources were inside Halas Hall because if Kevin Warren wanted to move on from Poles and bring in his own guy, he needed to sour Poles’ public image and he has done that successfully. Again, if he was a source in the story which I have no information in saying if he actually was.
Thomas Brown has twice taken on the interim tag in Chicago: first as the offensive coordinator replacing Shane Waldron and now as the head coach of the Bears. There isn’t a ton that’s going to change at this point in the season in that transition between head coaches, but what have you noticed in terms of team tendencies between Matt Eberflus and Brown over these couple of weeks?
That they aren’t any better and that they are worse in many areas. That isn’t to say that I think Matt Eberflus should have kept his job, he shouldn’t have. That was the right decision. I also think elevating Thomas Brown was the right decision, even though I also felt he was probably going to fail. The bottom line is that Brown was certainly going to be interviewed for the open head coach position in January so you may as well give him a few games at it so you can have actual data points to determine if he can handle the job (he can’t, at least not at this point in his career).
I think the most noticeable difference has been defensively. Eric Washington is now calling plays and he’s definitely not as good at it as Matt Eberflus was. The defense is worse. Both the San Francisco 49ers and the Minnesota Vikings did whatever they wanted against the Bears’ defense so I would expect Detroit to be no different on Sunday.
I think Bears fans expected a jump in effort and concentration but we haven’t seen that at all. We’ve seen more dropped passes, we’ve seen a defense that isn’t swarming the ball, and we’ve seen a player forget to report as eligible and cost them a touchdown. There isn’t a lot of organization on the sidelines and the players are just collecting paychecks at this point.
Caleb Williams has not thrown an interception in eight straight games, which is the longest streak by a rookie since 1950.
How much of that is by design to tug on Superman’s cape? Is Williams being coached to be more conservative in his approach? How much of it is luck vs. development?
There’s definitely been some luck involved. Williams has thrown a few interceptable passes that haven’t been snagged (Harrison Smith dropped one last week), but even if he had thrown 1 or 2 interceptions, he isn’t putting the ball in harm’s way. I think a lot of that was the conservative approach that Eberflus had to football, but with him gone, the team has been so bad it’s hard to get a read on anything.
Williams has been really inconsistent the last month or so of the season. He can have a first half like he did against Detroit on Thanksgiving, followed up with the very good second half he had against Detroit on Thanksgiving. He had a monster game against the Vikings a few weeks ago and had a so-so game against the Vikings earlier this week on Monday Night Football.
All the flashes are there with Williams that he could be the type of QB the Bears need, he just needs a coach (like Ben Johnson) to get it out of him. His issue right now is his receivers aren’t getting open as much and when they do get open, he’s missing them at times. His first route being open is the lowest rate in the NFL, which is causing him to hold onto the football too long and his sack rate has skyrocketed. Not to mention, he’s on his THIRD offensive coordinator of the season. It’s really remarkable when you don’t think the Bears could screw up a QB more than they did Mitch Trubisky, they did it worse with Justin Fields. And when you didn’t think they could screw up worse than they did with Justin Fields, they’ve managed to do it with Caleb Williams. It’s a nightmare.
The defense was something that was fueling the Bears early-season success, but since Week 7, that side of the ball has fallen off a cliff.
What’s been to blame for the Bears defense heading into hibernation before winter has even started?
This is going to sound insane, but the injury to Andrew Billings. Billings was an under-the-radar signing by Ryan Poles last offseason and he had such a nice season for Chicago, that he was extended that November. He was the engine to the entire defense. He eats double teams on runs and can collapse the pocket on pressure. He was playing absolutely spectacular football. He tore his pec and is out for the year.
Poles had no depth behind Gervon Dexter and Billings so they play a cast of really underwhelming characters at the second DT spot now. In fact, the Bears signed a practice squad player off the Packers’ practice squad earlier last week and he might have done better than any of the other players they had slotted in there over the last few weeks.
The defense has gotten even worse the last few weeks and that’s been largely an effort issue and, as I mentioned earlier, Eric Washington is not a good defensive play caller. If Jared Goff can handle the cold on Sunday, he should have plenty of targets streaking open.
Chicago has a few key starters from the trenches on the week’s first injury report. They were without defensive tackle Gervon Dexter last week against the Minnesota Vikings, and he remains on the shelf as of Wednesday. Offensive linemen Teven Jenkins and Braxton Jones also find themselves sidelined with a calf and concussion respectively.
Which of these players would the Bears find the most difficult to replace on Sunday should they be unable to take the field?
Being the defense stinks with or without Gervon Dexter, we can cross him off the list. Jenkins would also hurt, but the biggest issue would be if Braxton Jones can’t play again. Jonathan Greenard torched rookie Kiran Amegadjie on Monday Night Football almost getting Caleb Williams killed on a blindside sack and he was also penalized three times including two holding penalties. There were several other blatant holds from Amegadjie but perhaps the officials felt sorry for him, or more likely felt sorry for Caleb Williams and let them slide once the Bears were down two scores.
If they don’t play Amegadjie, they have to play Larry Borom who was already benched for poor play. They could bounce starting RG Matt Pryor out to LT but they haven’t really had any quality interior offensive linemen available either because of injuries there and the release of Nate Davis. Our only hope for Caleb Williams this week is that the Lions have enough injury up front that they struggle to create a pass rush even against the Bears’ anemic offensive line.
As you can see, we’re very positive about everything happening in Chicago.