Week Twelve: Vikings at Bears Open Thread
Today, I’m framing my prediction with Sidney Lumet’s offerings from the decade of the 1990s.
Q&A (1990). A strange, compelling film that Lumet co-authored. What do I find most strange about the 2024 Chicago Bears? Cole Kmet. Why does Kmet, a tight end that should be a vital component when it comes to making a rookie QB’s life easier, have only six catches over the last three weeks? Thomas Brown must get him more involved to unlocking this passing game.
A Stranger Among Us (1992). Will the real Montez Sweat please stand up? This is not the same player who arrived midseason in 2023, and the Bears needed him to be if they intended to mount a serious pass rush. Sam Darnold has a quick trigger under pressure. Sunday, they need Sweat to apply it.
Guilty as Sin (1993). What am I most guilty of this season? Underplaying the impact of the “Hail Maryland.” Seeing the Bears play Sunday against Green Bay, it’s clear that was not the same team that showed up the previous two weeks. The hangover was real, but it seems to have receded, sadly costing the club their 2024 campaign.
Night Falls on Manhattan (1996). One of the most underrated films of the decade, Night Falls is not perfect, but Lumet guides several brilliant performances, especially the late Ron Leibman. Minnesota features one of the best pass rushes in the league. Night is about to fall on Caleb Williams if the OL is not on high alert. (And I’m not sure their alertness will matter too much.)
Critical Care (1997). A subtle, if not entirely successful reminder that Lumet is the cinema’s greatest institutional critic. The Vikings offense is on a bit of life support. They have won their last three games, but it’s been mostly on the strength of their defense, as they’re allowing only 11 points per game over that stretch.
Gloria (1999). Lumet’s seriously misguided cinematic effort; a remake with no reason for existence. This is a perfect metaphor for Matt Eberflus’s continued role in the Chicago Bears. Still, I’m calling for the upset.
Chicago Bears 16, Minnesota Vikings 13
I.
Always.
Like.
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Bears.
The Bears are 4-6. Their season is effectively over, barring a miraculous run through the most difficult part of their schedule. Their head coach is most likely going to be fired at the end of the season. So, it’s not in the best interest of my time to write expansive game previews of games that carry little material value, and it’s not in your best interest to be subjected to those useless paragraphs. (I’ll use some Lumet in tomorrow’s prediction column.)
What is at stake over these final few months of the 2024 season? I would argue one thing: Thomas Brown’s future with the Chicago Bears. Do I think Brown could potentially be the head coach of the Bears? No, I don’t think so. I would not 100% rule it out, but it seems an unlikely development. Do I think Brown turning this offense around down the stretch could provide Ryan Poles some flexibility when looking for the next head coach? Yea, I do. Think about it. While everybody is pining for the next offensive mind, a successful run here from Brown could allow Poles to sit down with the likes of Bill Belichick, Mike Vrabel and Brian Flores, proven entities that will provide the leadership this organization requires. Brown would not be forced on these coaches, by any means, but why would any of those three want to makes an offensive coordinator change if they can walk into continuity on the side of the ball that is not their expertise?
We know the quarterback is the guy. We know the head coach is not the guy. But this offensive coordinator is only 38 years old. He has a lot to prove, and his work for the remainder of the seasons makes these games inherently interesting. If Brown can display a rapport with Caleb Williams, and earn his trust, the Bears could be in a position to upgrade the sideline in 2025 without having to uproot the offensive system in year two for the quarterback.
Tomorrow: Prediction.
I don’t know George McCaskey, despite spending the last few years having to deny I am George McCaskey. Have we spoken? Yes. Several times. That’s it. We don’t have dinners together. But over the years I have become quite friendly with people deep inside the organization, several of whom can be described as being in George’s inner circle. And based on my communication with George, and my conversations with these individuals, there is an unequivocal truth to the following statement: George McCaskey is a very good man, and he very much wants the Chicago Bears to be successful.
Can George McCaskey engineer that success? So far, no.
First, something needs to be repeatedly stated. George is one of the most hands-off owners in the league. He hires a general manager, and that GM runs the entirety of football operations. (Ryan Pace was singularly responsible for millions spent on facilities in Lake Forest.) Kevin Warren was hired to take over the business end from Ted Phillips and get the new stadium sorted. The administrative aspects of this organization are a mess. The stadium issues are dramatically unresolved. Is Kevin Warren the worst hire of George’s tenure? No, not in a world where the football leadership was once Phil Emery and Marc Trestman. But Warren is pretty close.
Now, an argument that is constantly made is that George should hire a “football guy” to run the franchise from the ownership level. But that method has been proven time and time again to fail. Parcells flopped in Miami. Holmgren flopped in Cleveland. Coughlin flopped in his return to Jacksonville. These are three of the most impressive football minds in the modern game and they achieved nothing in those roles. Who would the Bears even hire? So, while many bark mad about the ownership of this club, I focus my attention on the football, and that means the GM.
The Bears could have Jim Harbaugh running their ballclub right now but that would have required firing Ryan Poles last off-season. Harbaugh is the alpha in an organization. He chooses the individual serving in the head personnel role, and he chose Joe Hortiz, his longtime friend, to lead the front office in Los Angeles. And, be honest with yourself, did Poles deserve to be fired in January? Poles tore down a decrepit roster for two seasons and rebuilt the team into what most of us believed should be a double-digit win unit this year, even with a rookie quarterback under center. They still need talent on both of their lines, but I dare you to find one preseason analyst who called this Bears roster anything other than seriously improved. If this 2024 season had happened a year ago, the move to Harbaugh would have been something of a no-brainer. But it did not.
Two pigeons are resting atop a fictional statue of Richard Dent in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. They have just flown back to Georgia after spending Sunday afternoon at Soldier Field, watching Bears v. Packers. They are tired. They are hot. Their names are POODLE and PUDDLE, but neither of them knows the origins of those names.
POODLE: You know what I have noticed lately?
PUDDLE: What?
POODLE: Melancholy.
PUDDLE: Because of the election thing?
POODLE: Fuck the election.
PUDDLE: That’s what I say, but that’s just pigeon privilege.
POODLE: Pigeon privilege. What’s next?
PUDDLE: Something is always next.
POODLE: Melancholy. Deep, profound sadness.
PUDDLE: Like Hamlet?
POODLE: How do you know Hamlet?
PUDDLE: Guy with a beard and a scarf was walking through the park a few months back. He dropped a book and the blew it open. I walked over and gave it a perusal.
POODLE: Oh, you gave it a perusal, did you?
PUDDLE: I did. I gave it a perusal.
POODLE: What, my friend, did you peruse?
PUDDLE: I don’t know the story of the whole book, but I know there was a Hamlet and I know he was melancholy.
POODLE: How did you know he was melancholy?
PUDDLE: It said it in the play. That he had bad color, and this other character wanted him to shake off that color and be friendly.
POODLE: Good book?
PUDDLE: Wind blew it closed before I could get through that page, but it seemed like something you would like.
POODLE: I only ever read from two books. Both good!
PUDDLE: Which two?
POODLE: One was something about a salesman. Sad. The other was called Forum by an author called something Penthouse.
It comes down to what you believe.
Do you believe that after the Hail Maryland, after Gutless in Glendale, after Pathetic v. Patriots, the Bears will be able to reverse course by simply changing the offensive coordinator?
Do you believe the rookie quarterback has any faith in the direction this staff is leading him?
Do you believe the absurdly disgruntled DJ Moore will stop calling for the backup quarterback now?
Do you believe the now-injured defense will be able to endure these maladies and keep the Packers offense in check?
Do you believe the Bears can overcome this significant a sideline mismatch?
I would love to be pleasantly surprised Sunday. I’ll be rooting for that extremely hard. Do I believe it? I do not.
Green Bay Packers 34, Chicago Bears 13
I.
Always.
Like.
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Chicago.
Bears.
Breer works for SI, which I didn’t know still existed, under Peter King’s old MMQB moniker. His information regarding Flus’s future has been the best in the business:
The Chicago Bears’ move Tuesday morning didn’t come out of left field—Matt Eberflus himself indicated change could be on its way Monday during his press conference. It’s also not wholly unwarranted, given that the Bears haven’t scored a touchdown since losing on a Hail Mary in Washington two weeks ago.
But there is a larger question here, unrelated to an unhappy fan base getting a scalp as Chicago moves away from offensive coordinator Shane Waldron and to Thomas Brown as the team’s play-caller.
And what exactly will this fix?
Brown’s a good coach. But his play-calling experience, at any level, is limited to what he did last year in Carolina, when Frank Reich started as the Panthers’ play-caller, then gave the duties to Brown, took them back three weeks later, and then was fired, which cleared the way for Brown to call the offense over the last six weeks of the season. He’s never coached quarterbacks, and, at least on paper, he doesn’t really fix the problem.
And a big part of the problem is there’s been very little experience on the staff coaching the No. 1 pick in the draft who is starting at quarterback. Waldron had none. Brown had one year of it, and that didn’t turn out great last year. Quarterbacks coach Kerry Joseph had none. So while there was acumen and expertise there, the staff was flying blind taking a quarterback like Caleb Williams from an Air Raid offense at USC into the pros.
Maybe the Bears will go outside the organization now to fill that void, and get Brown some help. Judging by how the offense has played, the staff could certainly use some.
Obviously, there are big-picture questions with Eberflus, too, and it’s fair to say his future in Chicago rides largely on Brown’s job performance.
The NFL’s had two offensive coordinators fired in-season thus far this year, and they just so happen to be the two guys that Eberflus has hired to run his offense with the Bears—Waldron, and now ex-Raiders coordinator Luke Getsy.
So it’d stand to reason that ownership probably won’t let Eberflus make a third hire into the position after this year. So Brown turning around Williams and saving the Bears’ season is likely Eberflus’s ticket out of this. And if Brown delivers, then, obviously, Brown would probably become an easy pick to stick as the OC.
This is not going to be a post, or a column. This is just going to be a comment, a statement that I believe should be made and I want it to sit as the main post on this site for the entirety of this Wednesday.
To George McCaskey. To Kevin Warren. To Ryan Poles.
You’re losing.
Losing games. Losing the fans. Losing every drop of momentum built up over the previous two off-seasons. You’re losing me, a dedicated supporter and someone who has relentlessly watched this team every week since Bears football was available on the east coast and covered them diligently (at a personal financial cost) since 2005. I’m not abdicating my fandom by any means. What I am beginning to abandon is the burden, the burden of the Bears. You’ve become a chore, and one I am refusing to prioritize moving forward.
I don’t care who the offensive playcaller is. Matt Eberflus is still the coach. Today. But if the Bears watch the Green Bay Packers leave Soldier Field Sunday victorious again, that must change. No more “we don’t fire coaches in-season” bullshit. That’s what you have always done and what you have always done is fail. If the Packers win Sunday and you don’t make an immediate change in the leadership of this franchise, you are displaying (again) a glaring lack of awareness. If the Packers win Sunday and you don’t make a seismic shift on the coaching staff, don’t be surprised as fan anger turns to apathy for the remainder of this campaign and into the off-season.
You’re losing. Again.
When will you finally have enough of it?
Sincerely,
DBB.
