More intel from our division rivals
We are gearing up for Monday Night Football from U.S. Bank Stadium, and that means another opportunity to pick the brains of the folks at Windy City Gridiron as their Chicago Bears prepare to face our Minnesota Vikings.
Like I did the last time these two teams met, I got an opportunity to exchange questions with Bill Zimmerman from WCG. You can see my answers to the questions that he sent me over at WCG at this link. Below are his answers to my questions.
1) The big difference between the meeting these teams had a few weeks ago and now is that Thomas Brown, who started this season as the Bears’ passing game coordinator, is now the head coach after the firing of Matt Eberflus. I know he’s only had one game in the big chair but have there been any significant changes that you’ve noticed?
Perhaps Thomas Brown’s meteoric rise was a bit too quick in Chicago. The coaching staff seemed overwhelmed by Kyle Shanahan on Sunday. It was noticeable how much they missed Matt Eberflus’ defensive playcalling as Shanahan ran circles around new defensive playcaller Eric Washington. The offense didn’t look like it had the previous three weeks. Was that due to the elevation to Brown as head coach? Was he overwhelmed? The game plan was weak and the execution was poor.
I think Thomas Brown’s elevation was the right move. The Bears will almost certainly interview him in January, so you might as well see if he can handle the job and get some actual data. So to answer your question, we didn’t see how Brown handled the end of a close game because the Bears were beaten so badly, but somehow, someway, the Bears actually looked worse than they did previously with Eberflus.
2) When the Bears hired Matt Eberflus before the 2022 season, they also hired Ryan Poles to be the General Manager of the team. Do you think Poles is in danger of losing his job at some point here as well or will he be a part of the process of hiring the next coach?
After the Bears fired Eberflus, Kevin Warren and Ryan Poles held a joint press conference and Warren was adamant that Poles is the Bears’ general manager and he will lead the search for a new head coach. But was that the dreaded vote of confidence? An article in the Chicago Tribune today was absolutely scathing on Poles. It discussed his miss with Chase Claypool which was well documented, but it also discussed the signing of Nate Davis where Poles insisted on signing him after the coaching staff warned him not to. Interesting that one of the coaches on the staff at the time was Luke Steckel who was on Tennessee’s coaching staff when Nate Davis was there and presumably he was one of the coaches warning Poles and he still chose to sign him. If your readers aren’t aware, Davis was a disaster, refused to practice, may have faked injuries to get out of games and the Bears finally cut him after a year and a half.
It also discussed that Poles was Eberflus’ biggest fan and was a strong supporter of him behind the scenes and that it wasn’t George McCaskey or Kevin Warren’s fault that he kept his job after last season, it was Poles. The article was interesting and it was well-sourced from inside Halas Hall and you have to wonder if perhaps Poles’ seat is a lot warmer than it may have seemed when Warren gave him the vote of confidence at the press conference.
3) Brown’s head coaching debut came last week against San Francisco and the Bears suffered a pretty one-sided loss after a string of tough, close losses in the division. In your opinion, have the Bears checked out on the 2024 season?
I think this is going to be a huge game to see what kind of pride this Chicago Bears roster has. They have looked checked out in multiple games including the New England game, the Arizona game and this one last week against San Francisco. Perhaps the players were emotionally drained and we’ll see if they bounce back this week.
But with only four games remaining, you can certainly make the argument that this team is going to mail it in over the last month of the season. The offense feels disorganized, the offensive line continues to struggle, the receivers appeared to have run some wrong routes and the defense certainly wasn’t a high-motor effort on Sunday. If the Bears look flat again on Monday, I think NFL fans should expect that to continue the rest of the season.
4) If the Bears are going to turn things around and compete in what’s been the best division in football this season in 2025, what are the steps they need to take? Can they get most of it done in one offseason?
Isn’t that the $1,000,000 question? Most Bears fans expected this team to have a winning record and a lot of folks in the media did as well. I think even those who didn’t think the Bears were going to compete for a playoff spot still expected 7 or 8 wins and that certainly isn’t happening this year. I think the bottom line for this offseason is that they have to get the coach right. This division has three outstanding head coaches and the Bears need to find one that can hang with them. Is that going to be Ben Johnson? Will it be Mike Vrabel? It will be interesting to see what direction Kevin Warren and Ryan Poles (if he’s here) go this offseason.
If they nail the coach and have a good coaching staff, I think we see significant growth from Caleb Williams next year. From a personnel standpoint, the Bears have to fix the offensive line. The defensive line could use some improvement too, but the offensive line has to be significantly better. They need to sign a strong guard and they need to spend a high pick on another interior offensive lineman as well. They need to improve center as well but both free agency and the draft look weak there so I’m not sure how they try to bolster that.
If they improve the trenches and get the coaching hire right, I think they’ll make significant strides next year. But those are two huge ifs.
5) The Bears are coming into Monday night’s game as a significant underdog. How do you see the game playing out? Can the Bears potentially engineer what would be a pretty significant upset in prime time?
If you told me to bet this game, I would definitely take the Vikings -7. The Bears can be a team that can hang in there with good football teams if they have a strong effort, but with the data of just one game as Thomas Brown as head coach against a team that isn’t as good as the Vikings, albeit a talented one that’s having a rough year in the 49ers, there’s really no reason to think this game will be much better.
I do think the coaching staff was a little bit of a deer in headlights and I think that’ll improve this week, but I certainly trust Brian Flores to adjust his defense and bottle up Caleb Williams more than he did in the first meeting than I trust Thomas Brown in countering Flores again this game. I don’t think the Bears are run off the field like they were last week, but I do think the Vikings are comfortably ahead for most of this game, and the only way the Bears cover is a late touchdown to cut it under a TD with less than two minutes to go. Other than a backdoor cover, I just don’t see the Bears keeping this one close and I certainly don’t see them upsetting Minnesota on the road. I’ll say 27-17 Vikings.
Thank you, once again, to Bill for taking the time to answer our questions for this week!
