This was not what Bears coach Matt Eberflus needed to take some heat off himself and give some reassurance that he’s the right guy for the job.

Facing one of the worst teams in the NFL on Thursday in the Panthers, it was an opportunity for the Bears to show they’re at least better than somebody. Instead, they were in exactly the right weight class at the very bottom of the league.

This is right where the Bears fit, even after slipping by the Panthers 16-13 at Soldier Field, and that’s dispiriting in the second season of a rebuild. No sane person feels good about the direction of this team under Eberflus’ watch.

The Bears loftily dreamed of a best-case scenario where they’d be clawing for a playoff berth, but all they’ve done since the start of the season is stomp out that aspiration with dull performances like this one.

Eberflus came out of the locker room and in his halftime interview on Prime Video promised, “We’ve got some things up our sleeve,” with a clever smile.

Whatever was up his sleeve got stuck. It might still be in there. Watching the Bears in the second half, it’s hard to even fathom a guess as to what he meant by that.

It was a festival of punts, and the Panthers even outclassed the Bears there on their way to a 10-9 lead at halftime. The Bears didn’t muster their first touchdown until 6:33 left in the third quarter, taking advantage of a possession that began at the Panthers 38-yard line.

There’s a good chance the Bears won’t face an opponent this weak the rest of the season.

If the Panthers are a fairly even match for the Bears, imagine how this team will look next week in a visit to the Lions, who are running away with the NFC North and have lost only to potential playoff teams.

Quarterback Justin Fields potentially coming back from his dislocated thumb will help, but it won’t transform the Bears.

The Bears’ problem is simply that they don’t have an overpowering strength. There isn’t anything they can count on to drive them to victory. They’ve often stopped the run, but that hasn’t led to much in the standings. Their secondary is arguably the best unit on the team, but rookie cornerback Tyrique Stevenson is still finding his way and the slow pass rush undercuts all the talent playing behind it.

The Panthers are in a complete freefall and questioning everything, including whether they drafted the right quarterback in Bryce Young and hired the right coach in Frank Reich. Reich is their fifth coach, counting interims, in five years.

They’re where the Bears were last season, but the Bears seem stuck there as well. With an injection of talent through the draft and free agency, it’s hard to identify meaningful improvement.

By this point of his tenure, Eberflus should’ve stacked up a little more on the positive side of the ledger. That would elicit confidence that even if the Bears look imperfect now, they’re on their way up.

But his record is lopsided against him, and that goes beyond wins and losses, his team committing exasperating penalties at the worst moments and seemingly always facing third-and-19.

Eberflus has been fumbling throughout the season as the most public face and voice of the organization, whether it’s tripping over himself to explain the Chase Claypool debacle, talking about the “awesome” culture as another assistant coach exits or even something as easy as explaining that Fields would be out against the Panthers.

It takes a microscope to find positives, and it shouldn’t be that way this far into the Eberflus era.