NFL Week 3 Awards: The Bears must fire Matt Eberflus sooner rather than later to protect Caleb Williams’ future

We haven’t left September of this young NFL season, but I feel comfortable expressing these two connected feelings. After watching precocious rookie Caleb Williams do everything he can to stay above water in a moribund Chicago Bears offense that lets defenses harass him to no end, I still think he’s going to be a superstar. I still think he’s going to be a true field general who strikes fear into defenses every single week. That bright Bears reality comes with a caveat, though.

Williams will never (read: never ever) reach his potential as long as Matt Eberflus is his head coach. Full stop.

Sunday’s deflating Bears’ loss to the Indianapolis Colts demonstrated exactly why the Bears can’t risk damaging their young face of the franchise at the expense of a head coach who can coordinate defense and do nothing else at a competent level.

After trekking through mud all afternoon, the Bears found life thanks to a big-boy drive led by Williams late in the fourth quarter. Chicago would then be faced with a key two-point conversion decision. Any path would’ve been fine, literally any single decision, as long as Eberflus stayed committed to it. At first, he called for an extra point, signaling a “1” with his pointer finger. So the Bears’ special teams unit ran onto the field for an extra point. Mere seconds later, Eberflus seemingly forgot the score was 14-9 and decided to go for two. (I’m not joking. He really might have forgotten.)

By that point, the Bears’ special teamers were already on the field, and they had to waste a crucial timeout in a game that remained within one score for basically the entire afternoon. Eberflus would later waste another timeout for nothing, which left the Bears’ special defense grasping at straws when they needed one last stop to get Williams the ball at the end.

You can catch the initial burgeoning Chicago confusion for yourself after Rome Odunze scored in the clip below:

I can’t overstate this. You have to be on your game at every level, especially with your communication, if you’re going to be a successful coach. Eberflus’ explanation about this unforgivable sequence after the game didn’t make it better because his PRIMARY job is to be an effective communicator:

What’s worse about Eberflus’ general game management is how he doesn’t learn from his mistakes. Because what happened Sunday wasn’t a new occurrence. Just last week, he challenged a clear Stefon Diggs catch right in front of him. As a guy who professes to be a CEO-type coach, he continues to let his hand-picked offensive coordinator, Shane Waldron, set the Bears’ offense and Williams back with three yards and a cloud of dust on seemingly every possession and in every situation. It’s no wonder Williams has to press so much and that the Bears only have three offensive touchdowns in 12 quarters as the bona fide worst offensive team in pro football.

When we start to take more of a macro perspective on the Bears’ Eberflus era, it’s really challenging to feel good about anything with a guy who directs his team into oncoming traffic without thinking about it. He’s barely won 30 percent of his games since starting in 2022. His two coordinator hires — Luke Getsy and Waldron — both look like unmitigated disasters. He doesn’t know how to challenge “questionable” plays and how to manage timeouts. When push comes to shove, with the Bears’ best hope for a bright future finally under center in Williams, Eberflus appears content to be the glorified, defensive-minded bystander who lets crisis envelop an inept Chicago offense that has taken no meaningful steps forward in almost a month.

If not for playing one-man circus act Will Levis in Week 1, Eberflus’ coaching seat would be scorching right now. After the Bears’ dispiriting start to 2024 — where they have an elite defense that can’t carry an abysmal offense with a talented young quarterback doing his best — I remain confident the heat is on in some fashion.

So, I’m calling for it now. Be it now or later, the Bears must fire Eberflus — a guy they should’ve laid off in the offseason — to maximize Williams’ superstar potential. If I’m the Bears, I don’t care about competing for the playoffs this fall. (Though they clearly built this roster with that goal in mind, and that’s a different can of worms.) Their aim in 2024 is to ensure that Williams takes meaningful steps forward without defenses teeing off on him relentlessly and without his coaches acting as a rusty anchor ruining his learning experience. Honestly, I don’t see Eberflus’ approach improving much any time soon, but the Bears will probably (and unfortunately) give him the grace of seeing it out.

We’re three games into the Williams-Eberflus era. Thankfully, the damage done to Williams — who led the NFL in passing on Sunday — doesn’t seem to be permanent just yet. But the more he’s exposed to Eberflus and his incompetent cronies over time, I fear the damage will be irreversible.

The future of their franchise, perhaps the last truly unbreakable quarterback even for the Bears, hangs in the balance.

Elsewhere in the NFL in Week 3, Malik Nabers looked like an explosive ballerina, Jalen Carter backed up his trash talk, and the Carolina Panthers genuinely made the right decision. Seriously.

Let’s dive into the awards, friends.