Did the Bears Make a Mistake Hiring Eberflus?

ZOMBIE@CTESPN

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When George hired eberflus it put the nfl on notice!
 

Bearcub13

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Yes, I know it's too early to tell, but there are some themes and trends regarding playoff teams that are worth looking at. It's no secret that the NFL is now an offensive league and defense does not win you championships anymore; QB play does.

When looking at the top offenses in the league, 10 of the top 11 offenses made the playoffs this year. The lone team that did not make the playoffs were the Detroit Lions. Bears were 28th, FYI.

Among the remaining teams in the playoffs, 7 of the 8 have offensive backgrounds. The 8th coach is Sean McDermott with the Buffalo Bills.


There were 10 new head coaches this season. Of those 10, 4 had defensive backgrounds (Lovie, Eberflus, Dennis Allen, Todd Bowles) and 6 came from the offensive side (Pederson, Daboll, Kevin O'Connell, McDaniel, Hackett, and McDaniels). One from each side got fired (Lovie and Hackett). One from the defensive side made the playoffs (25%), and four from the offensive side made the playoffs (67%).

The hit rate and importance seem to lean towards offense. Now, obviously each team had drastically different circumstances where none of these comparisons are apples-to-apples. I just think it's interesting and something to monitor going forward the success of teams and their coaches' coaching background.

Should the Bears have hired Pederson or Daboll instead of Eberflus? Only time will tell.
No!
 

RiDLer80

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Yes, the quarterback/playcaller relationship is the most important dynamic in football. Hire the offensive mind and don't fuck with having to worry about hiring OC's every other year when they take jobs elsewhere or they end up being terrible and you have to replace them anyways. Quarterbacks can be ruined by having to learn new offenses all the time. The consistency is non-existent. There is absolutely no upside to hiring a defensive mind as a head coach.
This is where I'm at. Continuity for the offense is far more important than for the defense. Not to say it's not important, but having the same playcaller/QB coach for your QB is immeasurably important.

Look at Josh Allen and Buffalo. He seems to be just slightly more careless with the ball this season than last season. Even though Dorsey was right there with Daboll, it seems that something is slightly off without him. 10 points at home in the playoffs is unacceptable for that team. Meanwhile, down in NYJersey, Daniel Jones looked the best he has in his career under Daboll.

Best cast scenario for the Bears, Fields improves over the next two years and Getsy gets hired to be a HC. Now Fields is either learning a new offense, or working with a new playcaller an d QB coach that may or may not get the same results as Getsy got.
 

mecha

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This...

If the goal is to add leadership, integrity, discipline while developing and acquiring talent...


Then Eberflus has been perfect, makes a perfect fall guy, and yet is important to laying a solid concrete foundation for his successor.
he does have those John Fox placeholder qualities. Poles probably builds the team 2023 and 2024 offseasons, and barring they start winning a ton of games, Eberflus probably gets jettisoned and Fields will have played his 5th season on franchise tag and they just go all new with coaches and quarterback then.
 

Bust

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he does have those John Fox placeholder qualities. Poles probably builds the team 2023 and 2024 offseasons, and barring they start winning a ton of games, Eberflus probably gets jettisoned and Fields will have played his 5th season on franchise tag and they just go all new with coaches and quarterback then.

Hi ahcem!

Eber is tied to Fields play, just like Matt Nagy was tied to Mitch . . .

Both have little say in the matter. It's their job to make it work. Force fed even. They both don't have the clout or rank to perma bench their <chosen one> midseason like hall of fame lock head coach Mike Tomlin did to poor mitchell.

Zac Taylor of the Bengals won 2 games followed by a 4 game season. I bet bengal fans were calling for his head? right? what say you?

Zac's fortunes turned soon as . . .and became a genius. Can Fields play same role or is is he just destined to be added to the #ohiostate list?

 

Canth

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Nagy wasn't part of the Mitch draft. Was force fed him the day he took over the headcoach gigs to MAKE IT WORK

Fast forward to 2022. A Hall of Fame Lock headcoach gave up on your boy Mitch in not even half a season, lol. You owe Matt Nagy an apology bruh
Nagy wasn't force fed anything. He walked into the job with Mitch as hit qb with eyes wide open. He had evaluated Mitch ahead of the 2017 draft and knew what he was getting into. He thought he could make it work. Clearly he was not able to do so. The fact he couldn't do any better with any other qb is on Nagy. He had a great first year due to Fangio's defense and couldn't back any of it up and develop an offense that could points on the board regardless of who he had at qb.
 

Bust

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The fact he couldn't do any better with any other qb is on Nagy.

Nick Foles and Andy Dalton? I know bear qb bar of success is low to begin with but . . .
 

Mdbearz

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In General Terms - a Defense can be Good with Talent alone and only competent coaching.

An offense requires good coaching AND good talent to be good in the NFL.

The Bears have done the same thing over and over again, they flop back and forth between hiring Offensive and Defensive minded HC. because they let the previous HC influence the decision.

Lovie to Trestman to Fox to Nagy to Flus.

I think keeping Flus for another year will prove to be a mistake, but only time will tell.
 

Canth

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Nick Foles and Andy Dalton? I know bear qb bar of success is low to begin with but . . .

Again though, those were guys brought in on Nagy's watch. So, he signed off on the Bears acquiring them and that he thought he could make it work with them. The fact that the offense always sucked with any qb regardless of experience or athletism to me again shows Nagy was the core problem. He never seemed to make any real changes to his offense to play to his player's strengths. And all the penalties, false starts, formation issues, substitution issues, lack of offensive rhythm show that he also was not particularly great at getting his team to understand the details. Hell, he had to essentially fire himself at least twice as an offensive coordinator. That is clearly a coaching issue.
 

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Well they dumped or traded nearly every vet who could before and during the season. (mack/Nichols/Goldman/Smith/Quinn)
Except for Smith and Quinn in 2021, all of these veterans took more plays off then they hustled in.
 

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