Imagine the former Chicago quarterback tutoring Caleb Williams.
By Rick Morrissey
Nov 20, 2024, 12:46pm CST
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh celebrates after his team beat Washington on Jan. 8 to win the national championship.
None of this had to happen.
Not Tyrique Stevenson’s jaw-dropping foolishness, which cost the Bears a game against the Commanders.
Not a fainthearted decision by coach Matt Eberflus, which was followed by a blocked field-goal attempt that cost the Bears a game against the Packers.
If Jim Harbaugh were coaching this team, there’d be order in the court. There’d be on-field discipline. There’d be football brainpower.
But, no. The Bears just had to give Eberflus another year to prove himself after a 7-10 mark in 2023, allowing the big one to get away. That would be Harbaugh, the former Bears quarterback who has led the Chargers to a 7-3 record in his first season back in the NFL.
Imagining Harbaugh, and not Eberflus, coaching No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams this season and beyond is cruel, I know. Kick a team and a fan base while they’re down, why don’t you?
Actually, I’m being kind. Would you prefer to look at the near future, which includes the possibility that the 4-6 Bears could lose the rest of their games this season? Given the Bears’ ugly history of picking coaches, would you rather ponder a future in which the bumbling McCaskeys hire a new coach after firing Eberflus?
In terms of pain level, I’ll take the past over the present and the future.
The Bears had done very little under Eberflus to warrant ownership’s decision to bring him back after last season. Yes, the team had gone 5-3 in its last eight games, and, yes, Eberflus had managed to keep his players motivated (talk about a low bar). To focus on that, which the McCaskeys clearly did, was to pretend that the 2-7 start to the season, not to mention his 3-14 record the year before, meant nothing.
When ownership chose to keep Eberflus, it was clear to the rest of the league that he was on a very short leash. Thus, when he fired offensive coordinator Luke Getsy in January, the list of quality, experienced candidates willing to become the next OC was short. Few coaches wanted to hitch their wagon to a car with engine problems, even with the possibility of Williams coming to town.
That’s how you end up with someone like offensive coordinator Shane Waldron. And that’s how you end up firing your OC nine games into a season, which Eberflus did a week ago.
The McCaskeys’ decision to retain Eberflus after last season was a non-firing of convenience. It was the easy way out. The status quo is a close family friend.
Harbaugh is a strange, quirky coach who won a national championship at Michigan last season despite a suspension and an investigation into whether he had known about a sign-stealing scandal in his program. He also served a suspension for alleged recruiting violations.
The savvy observer of McCaskey behavior knows that Harbaugh isn’t their kind of guy. Too volatile. Too shifty. Too expensive. But you’d think after 41 years of family leadership and little success, they’d know that the NFL is not a league of gentlemen. It’s a league of Type A personalities whose only goal on earth is to win football games.
And Harbaugh, who took the 49ers to the Super Bowl in the 2012 season, would have won here. The Bears’ losses to the Commanders and Packers wouldn’t have happened. Stevenson wouldn’t have been taunting the Washington crowd while a Hail Mary pass was in the air because Harbaugh runs a tighter ship than Eberflus’ cruise liner. And Harbaugh surely would have tried to get more yardage before sending Cairo Santos out for a 46-yard field goal, which the Packers blocked as time expired.
That’s not supposition. On Sunday, with the Chargers and Bengals tied at 27, Harbaugh decided to run another play with 26 seconds left rather than try a 48-yard field goal. The result — surprise! — was a 29-yard touchdown run by J.K. Dobbins.
Eberflus said he decided to kick in similar circumstances because he was concerned about a fumble.
Same day. Different coaches. Different outcomes.
There’s timidity, and there’s boldness. Can you tell which is which?
On Tuesday, the Jets fired general manager Joe Douglas. Those kinds of developments are always jarring in Chicago, where we’ve been conditioned to believe that coaches and GMs are not to be fired during a season. The McCaskeys wear that like a medal, as if staying the course is a reflection of a classy organization.
In the same way that cutting Stevenson after the Washington game would have sent a message about the importance of discipline, so would firing Eberflus after the Packers game have told fans and the rest of the league that the Bears have decided to take winning seriously.
Ten months ago, the Bears could have sent a message about winning by firing Eberflus and hiring Harbaugh. But, no.
No comments:
Post a Comment