MINNEAPOLIS — Since the season-opening loss to the Packers flattened the Bears’ high expectations, it has felt like coach Matt Eberflus is on the brink. As the losses accumulated and any thought of this team making good on its playoff aspirations vanished by the end of October, Eberflus has tiptoed the line at which any rational team would fire him.
He didn’t change the narrative in an ugly 12-10 win over the Vikings — a meandering team that might sneak into the playoffs — on Monday and has just five games left to make his case to stay for a third season. That simply isn’t enough time to counterbalance what everyone has seen for a season and a half. He’s cramming for a final exam, but too much of his grade already has been calculated.
Eberflus went into Monday with the worst record of any coach in franchise history, winless in the NFC North at a time when the entire division has been rebuilding to some degree and without so much as a two-game winning streak.
If Bears president Kevin Warren and general manager Ryan Poles asked Eberflus to point to a signature victory, he couldn’t. This definitely wasn’t it.
There sure have been some signature losses this season, such as the botched endings against the Lions and Broncos or the total humiliation against the Chiefs.
That’s just on the field. Eberflus sparks even less confidence at the podium as the everyday face and voice of the organization.
And he’d have trouble giving legitimate answers on what he’s accomplished or proven over the past two seasons. He keeps hammering “championship habits” that have yet to materialize, and the Bears hardly are a reflection of his H.I.T.S. philosophy.
The Bears play hard, but that’s about it, and that’s a bare minimum request of a professional team. They’ve been a middling team in terms of getting takeaways, the most tangible trait Eberflus promised to instill, and they’ve committed the fourth-most penalties.
When the Bears self-sabotage, it’s no surprise. That’s a broad problem, and broad problems point directly at the head coach.
It was classic Bears, for example, when cornerback Jaylon Johnson intercepted a pass from Vikings quarterback Josh Dobbs in the second quarter and they dragged themselves out of a scoring opportunity with unforced errors.
Johnson returned that pick to the Vikings’ 37-yard line, the cusp of field-goal range, but cornerback Kyler Gordon got flagged for taunting, and the Bears began that drive at their own 48 instead.
They kept going backward. Justin Fields threw an incomplete pass in which left guard Nate Davis was whistled for being an ineligible receiver (the Vikings declined), then left tackle Darnell Wright committed a false start and the Bears wandered to a punt.
It’d be a different conversation if the Bears’ misadventures were aberrations, but under Eberflus, they’ve consistently underwhelmed.
It raises the question of what Eberflus does well other than calling plays as interim defensive coordinator, and that’s not something that should still be a mystery at this point. As a CEO-style head coach, it’s an especially bad look that two of his assistants — Alan Williams and David Walker — left under curious and concerning circumstances.
Fields, who also is running low on time, has yet to find his groove under Eberflus’ handpicked offensive coordinator, Luke Getsy. The Bears rarely outplay an opponent in crunch time. Eberflus was 2-11 in one-score games heading into Monday.
One of the biggest things he has in his favor is that the Bears are historically too patient — a characteristic that theoretically would’ve changed upon Warren’s arrival. He was hired to do more than build a stadium and said he had the expertise to evaluate the on-field product, and it’s hard to imagine Eberflus’ work has met his standards.