A reporter asked Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson this week if it was difficult for him to tune out the constant questions about the future of the team.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “If you’ve been in the organization long enough, you’re used to it by now. Just keep your head down. Continue to work.”
That’s the heart of the matter facing chairman George McCaskey and first-year president and CEO Kevin Warren as the Bears prepare for their second-to-last game of the season Sunday against the Falcons. Does a team that has had two head coaches, three offensive coordinators, three defensive coordinators and two presidents in the last three seasons need more change? Or has coach Matt Eberflus proved his mettle by navigating the storm this year, even if it was partially one of his own making?
“I feel like every player in that locker room would tell you this is probably one of the craziest seasons they have experienced,” safety Eddie Jackson said.
Does Eberflus deserve blame for that? Or credit for steadying things?
The Bears’ faint playoff hopes can be extinguished Sunday. To make the postseason, they need to run the table while the Seahawks and Rams lose out, plus get more help from other teams. A win would boost their record to 7-9 with the season finale next week against the Packers at Lambeau Field.
They also could lock in the No. 1 overall pick of the draft Sunday if the Jaguars beat the Panthers (2-13), who traded their first-round pick to the Bears in March.
The Bears have the ninth-best point differential in the NFL since Week 11. Their defense trails only the 49ers’ in interceptions this season. They’ve run for the second-most yards in the league and allowed the fewest.
That spells upward momentum for a team that started the season 0-4.
“You look at what we’ve done the past two months, and we’re a good football team,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “There’s a lot of evidence of us being on the rise.”
It didn’t feel that way when defensive coordinator Alan Williams and running backs coach David Walker, assistants whom Eberflus hired, both left earlier this season. Neither exit was by choice. Eberflus took over defensive play-calling in Week 2.
“I told the guys I never experienced something like that — losing a coordinator,” Jackson said. “The season [started] off to not the type of start we thought we were going to have. And guys going down, getting banged up — me going down, missing six games. Then another coach resigned.”
The Bears, he said, have rebounded from that point.
“It was just so crazy,” Jackson said. “But one thing we learned was, like, destruction comes first — you know, things have to be [torn] down for you to see the glory of it. I feel like it’s something bright. Honestly, man, it’s something good coming to this team, and that’s just like with life. When you go through troubles, trials, tribulations in life, at the end of that tunnel, there is always light.
“I feel like there is something special with this team, man. It [stinks] that we caught fire [so] late in the season.”
The Bears aren’t exactly bathed in glory, sitting in last place in the NFC North. But they have won four of six games for the first time since the middle of 2020.
“You can see guys buying into it by the way they practice, by the way they hustle, by the way they do the little details,” Eberflus said. “It’s just guys buying into it.”
The question is whether Eberflus will be able to say the same about his bosses.
