Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz and Frank Schwab discuss whether head coach Matt Eberflus is the right guy to lead rookie quarterback Caleb Williams and the new-look Bears offense. Listen and subscribe to the “Zero Blitz” podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
Now, you and I have talked about Caleb Williams a lot.
You and I have agreed that I think we agree that the Bears are, are likely contending for a playoff spot this year.
Right.
Like you agree with me, the Bears, a playoff caliber football team.
Correct.
Yes, absolutely.
I, I think they could be in contention.
All right.
So my one big thing is why the hell do we trust Matt Eberle?
Like, if we’re just being honest for a minute, Matt Eber flu is the defensive minded head coach that’s come in and did not do anything the right way to get the best out of Justin Fields, whether it was Justin Fields or Luke gets his’s fault, the offensive coordinator at the time.
I don’t really know.
And at this point, I don’t really care.
The fact is you had a quarterback that regressed instead of getting better.
You had an offense that just never seemed to click the way it was supposed to click.
Nothing really worked.
Right.
And for some reason, the organization with the transcendent talent at the first overall pick, decided to keep the same guy in charge.
I said, when Trevor Lawrence was drafted, that the Jags would fail Trevor Lawrence before Trevor Lawrence would fail.
The Jacks.
I think Matt Eber Flew specifically will fail Kayla Williams before Kayla Williams will fail as a quarterback in this, in this league.
I, I believe in Caleb’s talent.
I don’t know why.
Right now I should give benefit of the doubt to the Bears organization considering the fact that they decided the right thing to do was to keep a coach that we all know is on a short leash, which means you’re really putting your quarterback in a situation where either Eber flu suddenly figures it all out.
Yippie or he doesn’t.
And then all of a sudden after the season, you’re firing a coach or bringing in a new coach that they’ll, they’ll put as the, we want to get the most out of it.
And now you got Bryce Young 2.0 learning a new offense trying to get all of this language learned in year two, trying not to hinder the development of a young talent like Kayla Williams is still somebody that will have to be developed.
My one big thing is why do I trust and frankly, I don’t trust Eber flu to do that.
Yeah.
And it’s rare to see a coach be as close to the ledge of getting fired and save his job as Eber Flus did last season.
I remember Ron Rivera back in the Carolina Panthers days, did it like he was pretty much 1 ft out the door and then the River Ron thing happened and he figured it out and he had a decent run there.
But Eber flus, if we look back, they had a game last year against the Denver Broncos home where he went for it on fourth down instead of kicking a field goal trying to take the lead.
And at that point, they lose that game to the Broncos were just terrible last year.
And at that point I wrote, you can go back and look, I wrote, that’s it.
Matt Eber Fliss is done.
There’s no, maybe he gets fired after the season because of Bears don’t like firing coaches during the season, but there’s no way he can save this now and credit to him, he did like, he absolutely dragged his resume out of the trash and added to it and became a guy who like Bears fans should feel like maybe this is the guy, uh, it takes some time to figure out head coaching.
I and I get everything you said about him and all the complaints and the criticisms.
But over the last half of last year, they were a pretty good football team and they look like a well coached football team for that matter and maybe he just figured it out and now that you got a lot of talent to work with, I can’t, again, it is very rare for a guy to be that close to just dead man walking status and save his job and actually last for a few years, but he did it and I, I’ve kind of opened my mind to maybe he did just figure it all out.
We’ll see.
And, yeah, it would not be good for, you know, I mean, almost like Trevor Lawrence where coach gets fired during his first season, that kind of thing for Caleb Williams.
But right now I have a lot more trust factor in Matt flu and you do, I think he did figure things out in the second half of last year and he’s gonna take that momentum into this season.
I trust the bears’ roster.
I trust the Bears quarterback at this point.
I trust the Bears.
I don’t trust their head coach.
We’ll see.