Talking Chicago Bears with Windy City Gridiron.
Happy Friday one and all.
Hope you all are having a great week and are ready for your first place Arizona Cardinals to host the Chicago Bears this weekend.
We had some extra time this week (freshman football season has come to an end) and talked with Bill Zimmerman of Windy City Gridiron about the Bears and their 4-3 start.
Enjoy.
1. The Chicago Bears are 4-3 after “The easiest schedule in the NFL” and now head into “the hardest schedule in the NFL”. What is the feeling like amongst Bears fans heading into the second half of the season?
I think prior to the loss against the Commanders, Bears fans were feeling good about their team. The defense was humming and Caleb Williams was showing near linear growth through the first six games of the season. But the loss to the Commanders is still lingering right now, largely because it’s making everyone return to one of the big questions they had last year: Is Matt Eberflus the man for the job? We will save that discussion for later in the chat, but for now, I think this Cardinals game has become a crucial game for the Bears. Let’s be honest, next week they play the Patriots at home and they should win that game, if they can go to Arizona and win, that would set them up to be 6-3 going into the gauntlet. If they can manage to go 4-4, 10-7 would put them in a great spot to make the playoffs. If they lose to Arizona, it also would make you believe that 4-4 may be too high of a goal and that 3-5 might be more likely and that would place them with a losing record which is not what anyone was hoping for prior to the season. I think the feeling about the team right now went from positive to cautiously optimistic but I think the game on Sunday will tell us a lot about this team.
2. Obviously Caleb Williams is the question on everyone’s mind, so how would you grade his first half or so of his rookie year?
I think for the most part, there is a lot of excitement around Caleb Williams. I think there were a few alarm bells that were going off after two games for some fans who like to push the panic button early but I think the Bears’ approach with Williams was unique. We, as Bears fans, have never seen a quarterback (and that includes Jay Cutler) that is this active presnap. Williams is setting protections, audibling at the line, and rearranging formations regularly. He looks like Peyton Manning out there. No, I’m not saying he’s Manning, just about the active presnap process. I’m sure some Williams is making some mistakes with those adjustments but they are trusting him to do it and allowing him to grow. The Bears’ issues with their last two rookie quarterbacks were more about processing NFL defenses than it was about physical skills. With Williams, for me, I think the cerebral aspect of his play is more exciting than the physical gifts.
Williams struggled the first couple of weeks but showed improvement in week three against the Colts and really came into his own in weeks four through six where he was statistically one of the best quarterbacks in the league over those games. Unfortunately, development isn’t linear and he certainly regressed against the Commanders. His protection was a little shaky and he was more hesitant with the ball and that caused plenty of issues for the offense. But on a positive note, he did engineer what would have been two game-winning drives if it wasn’t for Shane Waldron deciding to give an offensive lineman a goalline carry with the game on the line followed up by Matt Eberflus and Tyrique Stevenson’s ridiculous mistakes on Washington’s final drive. There’s a lot of hope for Williams as he grows and develops. I would give him a B- overall to this point.
3. On the flip side, the defense seems to be menacing once again. Where are the strengths and what weaknesses need to be fixed as the year progresses?
Jayden Daniels threw for 326 yards on Sunday, but 120 of them came on two plays that were mistakes by Tyrique Stevenson. Despite those numbers from Daniels, the pass defense has been outstanding. The secondary has been very sticky and the pass rush has been surprisingly good. The Bears are struggling with injuries right now, especially in the secondary and they may have been part of the reason Daniels had more success. Kyler Gordon has been dealing with a hamstring injury since week five and he may not play again, Jaquan Brisker has been out a month with a concussion, his third in three seasons so that’s obviously concerning, and it will be interesting to see if the Bears consider benching Tyrqiue Stevenson for at least part of the game after his ridiculous antics at the end of the Commanders game. While the pass defense has been good, with those issues they’re facing, it may be softer than it was the first month and a half of the season.
The weakness of this team is stopping the run up the middle. TJ Edwards and Tremaine Edmunds operate well in space, but they can get bogged down in the middle of the field when they need to shed blockers. Andrew Billings is a load, but teams have been running to the opposite side towards second-year defensive tackle Gervon Dexter and have had more success over there. The Bears had an excellent run defense last season with the same personnel so it’s curious as to why they are giving up 4.7 yards per carry right now but that’s something they’ll need to solve in the next couple of weeks before the schedule really gets difficult.
4. Matt Eberflus… Just give your thoughts/opinion since it seems like he is coaching for his job.
Sigh, don’t get me started on Matt Eberflus. I’m going to try to remain objective here as I am not his biggest fan right now. Eberflus is a very good defensive coach. He’s calling the plays defensively and did so last year as well and he deserves a lot of credit for how they are playing. What he also does that he doesn’t get enough credit for is developing defensive players, especially in the secondary. Jaylon Johnson went from a good CB to one of the best in the league under him. Kyler Gordon and Jaquan Brisker have both developed into very good players and even their backups in the secondary have improved greatly and are solid players even if you haven’t heard of Jaylon Jones, Josh Blackwell, or Terell Smith. He also seems to be a really good coach Monday to Saturday who holds his players accountable but they still like playing for him, which is a commendable balance that not a lot of coaches achieve.
Where Eberflus really struggles is on Sunday, and as it turns out, that’s kind of important. He constantly either doesn’t challenge plays that should be challenged or challenges ones that shouldn’t. His clock management is questionable. His decision process on the drive that led to the Hail Mary was shockingly bad. He gave up a free 15 yards on the second to last play of the game and then had the audacity in the post-game press conference to say that play didn’t matter. Meanwhile, Dan Quinn (and several former NFL coaches including Bill Belichick) talked about how giving up those free 15 yards was the most important play of the game because that put them in a position to get the Hail Mary to the end zone. He’s either lying to cover his butt or incompetent and at this point, it’s hard to tell which one it is.
The most troubling thing about this is that all the signs pointed this way at the end of last year. The Bears were clearly going to move on from Justin Fields and draft Caleb Williams (despite how loud some Bears’ fans were on Twitter) and they had an opportunity to move on from Eberflus and bring in an offensive-minded head coach (Albert Breer recently stated that Ben Johnson was hoping the Bears’ job was going to come open because that’s the one he wanted) to develop Caleb Williams. But they didn’t do it. Now they are in a position where they need to keep a mediocre coaching staff for Caleb Williams in the name of stability or fire him and bring in a new coach in a QB’s second year, which is horrible for development, but that’s what they’ve done with their last three rookie quarterbacks in Justin Fields (Matt Nagy to Matt Eberflus), Mitch Trubisky (John Fox to Matt Nagy) and Rex Grossman (Dick Jauron to Lovie Smith). They don’t learn. It’s frustrating.
5. Give me one more unheralded player on offense and defense to watch as we head into Sunday’s matchup?
While I brought up running at second-year defensive tackle Gervon Dexter, I’m also going to bring up what a tremendous year he’s having. Dexter’s run defense, while still inefficient, has significantly improved since his rookie season, but what’s really been impressive is his ability as a pass rusher. Dexter has consistently been collapsing the pocket and routinely winning one-on-one pass rush battles. He’s gotten home for four sacks at this point in the season and he trails only Montez Sweat with pressures (Sweat 24, Dexter 20). There’s a lot of hope that Dexter can continue to improve and become an impact defensive tackle.
Offensively it’s tougher to come up with an unheralded player. The offensive line has been a little shaky and their skill position players for the most part are big-name players either due to draft position (Caleb Williams, Rome Odunze) or established veterans (Keenan Allen, DJ Moore). I’m going to give you a name you’ve probably heard but he’s had a really nice season and that’s tight end Cole Kmet. Kmet didn’t have a good game last Sunday (nobody did offensively but D’Andre Swift), but he’s been a key part of Caleb Williams’ growth and the improved passing game. He’s become a reliable, large target for Williams in the short and intermediate game and while the wide receivers get all the press, Kmet has quietly put together a season where he’s second on the team in receptions and receiving yards (behind DJ Moore) but also has the highest catch rate and success rate of any receiver on the team. Kmet has grown into one of the better tight ends in the league and he will be a key part of this team moving forward.