Winning in the NFL is not easy. There is plenty of parity throughout the league. The Chicago Bears have not been consistently successful since the days of Lovie Smith. The franchise continues to struggle on offense. Ryan Poles decided to move on from Justin Fields and this franchise is in desperate need of a true franchise quarterback who succeeds for a decade or more. Fans are now hoping that Caleb Williams is finally the answer at quarterback.
Heading into the Week 8 matchup, the Chicago Bears were coming off their first three-game winning streak with Matt Eberflus as head coach. Washington was 5-2 on the year and it was looking to be a battle of the first and second-overall picks from the 2024 NFL Draft. Jayden Daniels has had a better start to the 2024 season, but that has plenty to do with how Kliff Kingsbury runs the offense. Washington is running a high-tempo offense that allows Daniels to get the ball out quickly -- usually to his first read. While Caleb Williams is developing in a different manner.
After three superb games by Williams, the Bears watched their hopefully soon-to-be star quarterback play abysmal for roughly three quarters before finally starting to make things happen. Unfortunately, it was not enough, as the Bears defense—a defense that only allowed 12 points until the final second of the game—fell short on a Hail Mary pass that was tipped into the end zone for a winning Commanders' touchdown.
Teams will typically review the game but do not point fingers. I, however, am here to do some finger-pointing. Let's take a look at who is to blame for the loss to the Commanders by ranking who should shoulder the most blame.
We will start with the people who need to take some of the blame but are lower on the totem poll. Then we will work our way up to the biggest culprit.
Caleb Williams
When you see your quarterback sailing passes and throwing for fewer than 50% completions, you would expect the quarterback to be higher on the blame list. Caleb Williams gets a bit of a pass here though since he is only in his seventh start and he came on strong in the fourth quarter to help set the team up for victory.
Williams has plenty to learn still. However, seeing the way he commands the offense, Bears fans should be excited and not discouraged. Williams is doing things that Jayden Daniels is not and it will help Williams in the end. He goes to the line of scrimmage and does pre-snap reads, motions, etc. to determine if the defense is playing in man or zone. Then he will keep the play or audible to a secondary play. Furthermore, he is constantly going through his progressions and when you watch the film, even when he isn't connecting, he is making the correct reads more often than not.
The problem on Sunday was that he was not calm. He looked uncomfortable and that's not what you want to see from your quarterback. There is more to it that will be addressed shortly, but for now, Williams needs to hit a few of his early passes that sailed too high or were off the mark. His deep ball accuracy is still a concern as it becomes more of a trend than an outlier. Still, I'm not concerned and think Williams will become a top-tier quarterback in the NFL very soon. For now, he does shoulder some of the blame for Sunday's loss to the Commanders.
Offensive Line
Next up on the blame train is the offensive line. Had Braxton Jones and Teven Jenkins played the entire game rather than missing time due to injury, I would have put more blame on the offensive line. However, when you have to play your backup left tackle and your third-string guard, it's hard to not give them a little benefit of the doubt.
The problem is that the offensive line did not look great to start the game even when all five starters were still healthy. You first lose Braxton Jones to a knee injury. Then you lose Teven Jenkins and just two plays later, you lose backup guard Bill Murray. The injury bug was definitely hitting this unit fast and hard. Jenkins attempts to come back, but he gets dinged up again, and the "fullback" that fumbled away a potential touchdown (not really his fault) has to finish out the game at left guard. Yikes.
This unit needs to find a way to come together and block better. Watching teams that bring five or more rushers each down give the Bears a headache is getting old. This unit needs to figure out how to pick up these blitzes and they need to figure it out yesterday. For now, I'm leaving them lower on the list.
Ryan Poles
The man who deserves just as much, if not a little more, blame as the offensive line is Ryan Poles. Poles has yet to build the offensive line up to the point it needs to be. Drafting Darnell Wright still looks solid, but signing Nate Davis looks like a joke. Counting on Braxton Jones as your starting left tackle also adds a negative blip on the ol' resume. Poles has been great in many ways, but he continues to ignore and also swing and miss when it comes to the offensive line.
Since Poles is the general manager and in charge when it comes to offseason personnel decisions, he comes in one spot higher than the offensive line. Personally, Poles has done an excellent job turning the franchise around from a talent perspective. Unfortunately, these hiccups cannot be ignored and we must call him out for not fully addressing the trenches.
Shane Waldron
As we inch closer to determining who is most responsible for the Chicago Bears' loss to the Commanders, I think it's safe to say many believe Shane Waldron should be on the top of the blaming list. He is not. Instead, he finds himself smack dab in the middle.
The offense became predictable again. They didn't get the running game going early and there wasn't enough play-action. The offensive line struggled to pick up the blitz again and Waldron didn't do anything to change up the protection. Another option could have been to move the pocket. Caleb Williams throws the ball very well on the run, yet the Bears didn't move the pocket until late in the third quarter. Waldron stuck to his game plan and refused to make changes despite poor execution for more than half the game. Even worse was Doug Kramer's attempt at becoming the next William Perry.
Waldron turtled himself back into the same poor playcalling we saw to start the season. I joked on Twitter that Caleb Williams should channel Jim McMahon and just call his own plays. It might need to get to that point if Waldon continues to make these awful decisions.
Tyrique Stevenson
Some of you might be surprised to know that Tyrique Stevenson is not at the top of my blame list. Although he might be at the top of my shame list. What Tyrique Stevenson did on Sunday is inexcusable. I'm glad he apologized to the fans and his teammates. However, that isn't enough.
I tried to give Stevenson a little love after he gave up the deep ball to Terry McLaurin on a go-route. He made a touchdown-saving ankle tackle that kept four points off the board because the defense held their own in the red zone and only allowed a field goal. Stevenson later made a great play on a similar route that stopped McLaurin from making another touchdown catch. Unfortunately, that little bit of goodwill he earned was short-lived due to a lack of self-discipline.
Before the second deep ball to McLaurin, Tyrique Stevenson was called for an unsportsmanlike penalty for sticking his fingers through the facemask of Commanders' guard Sam Cosmi. You can tell he was being chirpy and wasn't controlling his emotions. Things only got worse during the final two plays when Stevenson was more concerned with interacting with fans than paying attention to the game. It essentially led to him being out of position on the final play of the game -- the Hail Mary touchdown that gave the Commanders the win.
My apologies for making you re-live that horrible moment, but as I said, Stevenson is not the most to blame for the Bears' loss to the Commanders. That title belongs to...
Matt Eberflus deserves the most blame
If you were hopeful that the glam-up of Matt Eberflus was enough to turn him into a Super Bowl-caliber coach, you need to wake up. This game further proves that the top moments are too big for Eberflus. Many fans wanted him to be fired before the 2024 season, but he was kept by Ryan Poles (another reason Poles is on this blame list) and it is biting this team in the behind.
Eberflus does not know how to properly manage a game. He is also to blame for the Doug Kramer FB Dive play that led to a fumble on the exchange at the mesh point between Caleb Williams and Kramer. That is not a play you make when trying to take the lead being down by one score. If you want to run a play like that, you do it when the team is up by at least two scores. That wasn't even the worst of it though.
On the second to last play, Matt Eberflus did not have his players closer to the line of scrimmage to take away any quick sideline passes to move the Commanders closer to the end zone. Jayden Daniels was playing hurt with a rib injury and although his deep ball looked effortless, he was not going to get the ball into the end zone without quickly moving the ball another 12 to 13 yards. Daniels hit a quick out route and left 0:02 on the clock for the final play.
Matt Eberflus defended the decision to not play the sideline and said that Washington would have just converted to a Hail Mary. Wrong. Daniels didn't even get the ball into the end zone after the out route put the Commanders in a better position. He definitely wasn't going to get the ball to the goalline if they were 12 yards further back. Instead, Chicago would likely have been trying to stop a crazy lateral play. I'd rather have seen this happen.
Members of the defense have called out the decision-making of Eberflus on the final two plays. Jaylon Johnson still wonders why a timeout wasn't called. It could have been called on the second to last play (Chicago had all three left) to make the decision to take away the sideline. Even if Eberflus didn't use the timeout on that play, why wasn't Eberflus using a timeout on the final play of the game? Who is not telling him, if he isn't seeing it, that Tyrique Stevenson is goofing around and not ready? For sure the Chicago Bears needed a timeout to collect themselves before the final play.
Matt Eberflus seems to disagree.
No accountability for himself, his coaching staff, or the players. Now we are hearing that Jaylon Johnson, Kevin Byard, and even, to some degree, Cole Kmet are calling players and coaches out. Could the locker room be turning on Eberflus? For a team sitting at 4-3 on the year, it feels like this team is quickly flaming out. Matt Eberflus won't get fired mid-season (Bears refuse to do that), but if he keeps losing these winnable games he will be on his way out before next offseason.
If he wants to stick around, then he should bench Tyrique Stevenson for at least a quarter (maybe more) to send a message throughout the locker room. I doubt he does though and it will just show that there is not enough, if any, accountability.
