Bears' 29-9 loss to Cardinals illuminates many problems, including struggle to develop QB Caleb Williams

GLENDALE, Ariz. — The Bears have arrived at a familiar point. They have a struggling quarterback, an unreliable defense and a coach who can’t find the answers.

The routes might vary, but the destination is the same.

All those flaws undid the Bears on Sunday as a mediocre Cardinals team rolled them 29-9. They’re not progressing, and that’s alarming. They’ve mostly wasted their chance to stack up victories during the easier part of their schedule, and there’s zero indication it’ll get better.

They sit 4-4 while the rest of the NFC North is comfortably above .500, and their remaining schedule is the toughest in the league. Those dreams of the playoffs are a fantasy.

Coach Matt Eberflus talked afterward about needing to ‘‘circle the wagons and stay tight.’’ But if the wagons are always circling, as they have been under Eberflus, they never actually go anywhere.

His team has many problems, but the stalled development of rookie quarterback Caleb Williams is the most troubling. He dictates the Bears’ long-range future.

Williams made his eighth career start Sunday, and he’ll get at least three seasons to figure this out. The question general manager Ryan Poles must ask is whether Eberflus and offensive coordinator Shane Waldron are doing enough to facilitate his growth.

Absolutely not.

Williams completed 22 of 41 passes for 216 yards and a 68.8 passer rating. It was the third game in which he completed less than 55% of his passes and his fourth with a passer rating below 70.

The Bears’ offense was held to its lowest point total of the season, didn’t score a touchdown, had one drive longer than 35 yards and went 3-for-14 on third down against the NFL’s worst third-down defense.

‘‘Full responsibility,’’ Eberflus said of his role in the offense. ‘‘We’ll work with the offensive staff [Monday] morning as we watch this tape tonight and find answers.’’

How long will he get to come up with those ever-elusive answers? His constant search for them sounds a lot like former coach Matt Nagy looking for ‘‘the whys,’’ and Nagy trudged through the final weeks of his tenure with little to offer, other than taking all the blame.

‘‘You have to find answers,’’ Eberflus said. ‘‘Three weeks ago, we were [improving] and it was looking good. Now, we’ve got to find answers. We’ve got to find answers to put our players in position to be successful, including Caleb.’’

Especially Caleb.

For the season, Williams has completed 61.4% of his passes, averaged 208 passing yards per game and has an 83.0 passer rating. Rookie or not, the Bears are counting on better play from a player drafted No. 1 overall and won’t beat many teams unless he improves.

‘‘Expectations of myself are always going to be high; they’re still high,’’ Williams said. ‘‘We still have nine games. It’s going to keep being high. We just have got to figure out the next step.’’

There also are ongoing questions about the offensive line Poles assembled, and it failed Williams repeatedly against the Cardinals.

Early in the fourth quarter, with the Bears already desperate enough to go for it on fourth-and-11 near midfield, three Cardinals defenders broke into the backfield almost immediately, and linebacker Zaven Collins grabbed Williams by the shoulders and spun him around for a sack.

Left guard Teven Jenkins and backup left tackle Larry Borom — both of whom were beaten on the play — helped him up, and Williams stood on the sideline wincing for a moment before sitting down next to Waldron.

After the Cardinals turned that into a field goal and a 27-9 lead, Williams promptly got sacked again for a 10-yard loss. It was the Cardinals’ third consecutive sack, and it wasn’t the last hit Williams took.

‘‘Our quarterback is a good quarterback, and when you protect him he can get the ball down the field and do a good job,’’ Eberflus said, noting Williams was sacked six times.

Nonetheless, he kept Williams in the game with the Bears trailing by 20 with two minutes left, even though both starting tackles were out and he had been getting hounded all day. And when Williams scrambled on third-and-seven, Cardinals defensive lineman Ben Stille landed on his left ankle.

Williams limped off and said he ‘‘tweaked’’ it but believed he was fine.

Assuming that doesn’t become an issue, the most important task for Eberflus is to straighten out an offense that has thrived only against the worst defenses in the league. It couldn’t even do that Sunday; the Cardinals came in having allowed the seventh-most points in the NFL.

‘‘I don’t think it’s going to be an easy fix,’’ veteran wide receiver Keenan Allen said. ‘‘I don’t even know what the problem is or where we would even start. We’ve just got to go back to work.’’

Tight end Cole Kmet kept going back to the broad assessment of poor execution, but even that shouldn’t be an ongoing issue halfway through the season.

‘‘You don’t want to have that problem after Week 2 or 3,’’ Kmet said. ‘‘Between OTAs and the long camp we had, you would hope that’s getting resolved [earlier], but we’re just not there yet.’’

This thumping was more of a blow to the Bears than when they lost to the Commanders on a Hail Mary last week.

They’re adrift, and things are getting dark. They might get a reprieve with the sputtering Patriots coming to Soldier Field, but they’ll face a gauntlet of sturdy opponents in their final eight games, and Eberflus and Waldron are fully on watch.

The one thing that could change the Bears’ course is rapid development from Williams, but there’s little sign of that happening soon and no evidence — none — that Eberflus can steer him there.