Getty Steelers quarterback Justin Fields.
Steelers quarterback Justin Fields didn’t even flinch when asked in a recent interview whether he prefers the coaching in Pittsburgh or Chicago.
Fields — the former No. 11 overall pick for the Bears — joined the ‘Not Just Football with Cam Heyward’ podcast as a guest on September 26 and answered a handful of either-or questions about where he has preferred playing during his college and NFL careers.
The part that stood out most to Bears fans, though, came when Heyward asked Fields to choose between his Bears and Steelers coaches and he responded with zero hesitation.
“Pittsburgh,” Fields answered immediately with a smile. “It’s not close.”
Fields didn’t linger on the subject or overtly bad-mouth the Bears during the interview, but his response spoke volumes about his time in Chicago over the past three seasons. He could have simply responded he prefers his current coaches — as many would have expected him to say — but he threw extra shade at the Bears by adding: “It’s not close.”
Fields’ comments should not come as much of a surprise to Bears fans. Coaching was the subject of scrutiny throughout Fields’ three seasons with Chicago, starting with Matt Nagy during his 2021 rookie season and continuing with Matt Eberflus into his next two seasons. The problems also extended to since-fired offensive coordinator Luke Getsy, who seemed incapable of constructing an offense that played to Fields’ strengths.
Of course, Fields is now playing under Steelers’ Mike Tomlin, the current longest-tenured head coach in the NFL who has held his position since 2007. Even if Eberflus is on the right track building up the team’s locker room culture, it is hard to compare the two coaching infrastructures given how established Tomlin’s presence is in Pittsburgh.
Bears’ Coaching Issues Persist With Matt Eberflus
The Bears may have rebooted at the quarterback position in 2024, but their coaching issues under Eberflus remain wholly intact after the first three games of the season.
Eberflus’ public image had a noticeable glow-up during the 2024 offseason. General manager Ryan Poles pointed to his qualities as a “leader” and a “man” as justification for retaining him after a 7-10 finish in 2023. Bears fans seemed to mostly buy into him, too, after getting a closer look at his personality and leadership style in HBO’s “Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Chicago Bears.”
Just three games into the 2024 season, though, Eberflus’ coaching blunders have raised familiar questions about his viability as a head coach. While the defense — his specialty — has shined during their 1-2 start, Eberflus has mismanaged both his challenges and timeouts through the first three games in ways that have proved costly for the Bears.
For example, Eberflus challenged a clear catch from Houston Texans star Stefon Diggs in Week 2’s loss despite having arguably the best vantage of the play out of anyone else on the field, as the catch happened directly in front of him near his sideline. The Bears lost the challenge, and it deprived them of a valuable timeout.
Some of the blame for the Bears’ slow start does fall on new offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, but his issues are also an indictment of Eberflus, who hired him to usher in a new quarterback while forcing him to keep Chris Morgan as his offensive line coach.
According to Covers.com, Eberflus already has the fourth-best odds (+900) to be the first NFL coach fired this season. And if the Bears end up moving on from Eberflus after the 2024 season, it could set them up to repeat the same old pattern at quarterback.
Will Bears Repeat QB History With Caleb Williams?
The Bears are still just three games into the 2024 season, so there is plenty of time for them to turn the early-season disappointment into something more satisfying. Don’t forget the Bears won five of their final eight games in 2023, a turnaround that likely saved Eberflus’ job and bought him another opportunity to coach the team in 2024.
If the Bears finish with another losing season under Eberflus, though, will the franchise be forced to repeat its unfortunate history with rookie quarterback Caleb Williams?
The Bears have developed an ugly habit over the past eight seasons when it comes to drafting and developing quarterbacks. With both Mitchell Trubisky in 2017 and Fields in 2021, Chicago made the mistake of keeping its lame-duck head coach in place for their first-round quarterback’s rookie season and then, after struggles, replaced him with a new coach — one who brought a new staff and offense for their QB to learn.
The Bears found mixed results with that approach. Under Nagy in 2018, Trubisky played the best season of his career, throwing for 3,223 yards and 24 touchdowns, but Fields had more difficulty as a passer adjusting from Nagy’s offense to Getsy’s system in 2022. In both cases, though, the Bears effectively burned their quarterbacks’ rookie seasons by making him learn the system of a coach who did not return for Year 2.
Now, the Bears are in danger of doing the same thing with Williams — the only No. 1 pick of the three — if they cannot steady the offense and start winning games in 2024.
