Bears' offense is broken, and it risks breaking Caleb Williams

The Bears offense is broken.

It risks breaking Caleb Williams.

That was the only conclusion to draw from the team’s 19-3 loss to the worst-in the-league Patriots on a somber Sunday, as disillusioning an afternoon as the franchise has had in years. On the way to their third consecutive loss, the 4-5 Bears failed to score a touchdown for the second game in a row, a span of 23 possessions. The Bears went two straight games without a touchdown for the first time in 20 years.

Williams was sacked a stomach-churning nine times, the result of his refusal to throw the ball away and playing behind an offensive line that, for most of the game, featured only one Week 1 starter because of injuries.

A Bears offense that surged for a three-week period earlier this season regressed Sunday to the point where its closest comparison was the Bears’ Week 1 game. The Bears averaged 2.8 yards per play in Williams’ first-ever NFL game. Sunday, they averaged 2.4.

The offense is getting worse. Williams is getting worse.

He went 15-for-30 for 120 yards and a 63.2 passer rating and was outplayed by the Patriots’ Drake Maye, the No. 3 overall pick. Maye went 15-for-25 for 184 yards, one touchdown, one interception and a 79.4 passer rating.

A franchise that has never fired a head coach during the season now faces questions about its leadership just barely past the halfway point of what was supposed to be a breakthrough year.

Matt Eberflus — a candidate to be fired himself — is considering taking play-calling duties away from offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, whom he chose from a list of eight candidates this offseason. Eberflus wouldn't rule out a play-caller change after Sunday’s game, saying that he will “look at everything from the top to the bottom.” That’s a different tone than he struck a week ago, when he said Waldron would continue calling plays.

There’s precedent, too. The Raiders fired Luke Getsy last week — the same offensive coordinator Eberflus fired at the end of last season.

“We've got to find the continuity there, find the structure that we need, the winning formula we need to score points,” Eberflus said.

Eberflus could choose to fire Waldron or simply demote him. Williams didn’t exactly lobby for Waldron, saying he could adapt were there a change made.

“I mean, they're not going to re-invent the wheel …” he said. “We're midseason, and it's not a decision for me. I have to do what (Eberflus) says. I have to deal with whatever decision he makes, and I have to be fine with it. Will I be able to adapt? Yes, I will. We'll be able to adapt, whatever decision Coach makes. From there, we have to go out and execute and win games.”

Pass game coordinator Thomas Brown, who served as the Panthers' coordinator last year, would be the most logical candidate to take his place. Brown worked for the Panthers last season, and it didn’t go well; head coach Frank Reich called plays for six weeks, then handed the duties off to Brown for three weeks. When Reich was fired, Brown called plays again. The Panthers finished last in the NFL in yards.

General manager Ryan Poles stacked his roster with veterans to give Williams, the No. 1 pick in the draft, a sense of stability. Changing coaches midseason accomplishes the opposite.

The Bears have never fired a head coach in the middle of the year. The last offensive coordinator to not make it to the end of a season was Gary Crowton, who left to become BYU’s head coach in 2000. Bears coach Matt Nagy twice demoted himself from play-caller, handing the duties to coordinator Bill Lazor in 2020 and 2021.

The cost of doing nothing is great. President/CEO Kevin Warren and even chairman George McCaskey must know that.

The Bears have led for 25 seconds, total, the last three games. No Bears quarterback has ever been sacked more than Williams was Sunday. His nine sacks tied Chad Hutchinson (2005), Jay Cutler (2010) and Justin Fields (2021) for the most in Bears history. In the first quarter, Williams took an eight-yard sack that knocked the Bears out of field goal range. It was the second time in three weeks he’d done the same thing.

The Bears have dropped back to pass 66 times in the last six quarters. Williams has been sacked 13 times — almost 20% of the time. At that rate, Williams won’t make it through the season upright.

In addition to the Bears’ protection problems, their receivers couldn’t get open and their quarterback couldn’t get the ball where it needed to be. That’s a formula for a rookie quarterback to develop mental and physical scars that will haunt him for years.

It will only get worse. The Bears have the toughest remaining strength of schedule in the league. Entering Sunday night’s game, future Bears opponents had won 70% of their games this season.

“Caleb's strong,” Eberflus said. “He's strong inside. He's strong outside. He's a strong individual, and he's been through adversity. He knows how to do this. He knows how to get through adversity by pulling together. We've got to pull it together with everybody else too. It's important we get that done moving forward.”

Whether they move forward with Waldron — or Eberflus — is a different question altogether.