3 potential overreactions to Bears loss to Cardinals: Change is needed, but how much?

As a fan, every season has its peaks and valleys, unless you're a White Sox fan, then it's pretty much all just one big canyon. For the rest of us though, we hang on every win and loss. Momentum is only a game away, so even if your team (let me think of a totally random example) gave up a final-play Hail Mary to lose a heartbreaker, a win the following week is all it takes to get the train back on the tracks.

The season has most definitely been derailed for the Chicago Bears, and honestly, it doesn't seem like there's an easy way to fix it. Even as Bears fans were crushed by last week's loss to the Commanders, it was still possible to paint an optimistic picture. The team was still above .500, and they were traveling to meet a Cardinals team that had been pulling wins out of their you know where.

A win in Arizona would have put the Bears at 5-3 with the lowly Patriots up next, so even though the second-half schedule is set to be a real gauntlet, there was an easy path for the Bears to head into that difficult stretch riding high and playing confident football.

That's all out the window now, as the Bears not only didn't bring their A game to State Farm Stadium, they didn't bring their B or C game either in a 29-9 loss that never felt close.

Good teams respond to adversity, bad teams shrink from it. We all held out hope that this Bears team would bounce back from what happened in Washington, but needless to say, that didn't happen.

Monday is the time when emotions are running high, so I thought we would play a little game. What follows are three overreactions based on the Bears' terrible showing in Arizona, and I'll try to determine which, if any, are actually overreactions, and which, if any, are not. Let's begin.

Bears overreaction No. 1: Shane Waldron needs to go

It seems oddly fitting to start with offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, since his offense has been such a no-show at the beginning of games. Again the Bears were held scoreless in the first quarter, which keeps them at 10 total points scored in the first quarter all season long. Keep in mind, the Bears have now played eight games, which means they are now averaging just 1.25 points per first quarter. The Halas Hall doorbell is ringing, so let that sink in.

Waldron seems incapable of getting the Bears in a rhythm early. They can't establish the run. They can't get Caleb Williams easy completions. And they can't surprise opposing defenses with an explosive play. Any time they actually begin to sustain a drive, it's quickly short-circuited with a sack or some other negative play.

Waldron has so many weapons at his disposal, but the Bears offense goes long stretches while completely ignoring some of them. How is it possible that Cole Kmet can look like one of the top tight ends in football against the Jaguars and then get one target in the next two games combined? How can DJ Moore have had the best season of his career last year but has now been held to 36 yards or fewer in five of the Bears' eight games?

All due respect to Keenan Allen, who has had a tremendous career, but he's not the same guy he once was. His early-season foot injury certainly couldn't have helped, but he's not getting any separation, and he's made multiple killer drops this year. He's not the guy that should have gotten 17 targets in the past two weeks.

Roschon Johnson has been an outstanding goal line back this year, but for some reason (and one that he says he would do again!) Waldron decided to hand the ball to backup center Doug Kramer instead as the Bears tried to take the lead last week. There's being creative and there's being way too cute. We all know what category that decision belongs in.

Waldron's offense has only looked good against some of the worst defenses in the league, and even then, not always. The Cardinals entered this game giving up 24.9 points per game, but they held the Bears without a touchdown.

Eight games may seem like a short leash for a new offensive coordinator, but the Bears offense should be much better than it is.

It's not an overreaction. Waldron needs to go.

Bears overreaction No. 2: Matt Eberflus needs to go

Has Waldron been the only problem with this team? Far from it, so we need to keep moving up the chain of command to determine if more changes need to be made. Matt Eberflus was able to keep his job heading into this year in part because he offered former offensive coordinator Luke Getsy as a sacrifical lamb. Getsy was a bad OC to be sure — please refer to the fact that the Raiders have already fired him as proof.

There's one problem with firing Getsy and then Waldron and assuming the problem is fixed — Eberflus is the one that chose these guys, so he needs to bear some blame as well. Being a poor judge of offensive coordinators is a serious offense for a head coach, but it's far from the only knock on Eberflus right now.

Overall, Eberflus has done a great job with the defense, both in terms of preventing points and forcing turnovers. The fact that the Bears let the Cardinals run all over them on Sunday tells me not that Eberflus suddenly forgot how to coach the D, but that he's losing the locker room. That was a poor effort by the defense yesterday, its worst in a long time, and I refuse to believe that the absence of Montez Sweat was solely responsible.

Eberflus' game management puts the Bears at a disadvantage every week. From the baffling decision to give the Commanders a free completion to midfield, to not using a timeout before the final play of the game, Eberflus continually shows that he doesn't have a handle on the flow of the game and what needs to be done to win. With Eberflus in control, a Bears win is never assured until the final whistle.

Even those that were willing to chalk up last week's Hail Mary to bad luck now have to admit that they were wrong, as the Bears again failed miserably in a low-clock situation by letting Emari Demercado take a simple handoff 53 yards to the house with just two seconds remaining in the first half.

Eberflus is now an unfathomable 3-18 on the road, and after Sunday's game, there's little reason to believe that will ever change. The Bears have enough talent to be better than 4-4, and with the recent report that Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson would have been interested in the job last offseason, it's clear that this is a desirable job.

Even when the Cardinals game was long decided, Eberflus kept Caleb out there behind that bad offensive line to throw for reasons that Bears fans will never understand. Caleb came up limping on the game's penultimate play, and though it thankfully looks like he won't need to miss any time, the fact that Eberflus put him in that position is a fireable offense in itself.

The final nail in Eberflus' coffin is that he demands accountability from his players, but takes none himself. Tyrique Stevenson was rightly demoted for his antics that allowed the Commanders to win, but Eberflus always seems to double down on his own bad decisions, such as letting Washington get free yards to set up the Hail Mary in the first place. Bears fans are tired of hearing the same old boilerplate quotes from him about the team looking good in practice or moving in the right direction.

It's not an overreaction. Eberflus needs to go.

Bears overreaction No. 3: Ryan Poles needs to go

It's only fair that if we're willing to get rid of the coaches, we also need to be looking at the guy that hired them. Ryan Poles has done some great things as the Bears general manager, but he's also made decisions that have left Bears fans scratching their heads. To paraphrase The Clash, should he stay or should he go?

Kevin Warren, the president of the Bears, is the one that will ultimately need to make the call on Poles. He'll be looking not only at what Poles has done, both good and bad, but whether Poles is capable of fixing the mistakes he's made.

Let's begin with the good things that Poles is responsible for. Number one, the trade with the Panthers that ultimately brought Caleb Williams, DJ Moore and others to Chicago. By any measure, this was a total heist, and a huge checkmark in Poles' favor.

Poles took over a team that was going nowhere and gutted it. He's done a great job of increasing the overall talent level in a short period of time, and even though not every one of his moves has been a success (the Chase Claypool trade stands out as a huge swing and miss), overall he's had more wins than losses when it comes to personnel decisions and trades.

Let's quickly go through some of Poles' most notable moves. The Montez Sweat trade was a great one, and set the defense on its upward trajectory. The jury is still out on the trade with the Eagles that landed Jalen Carter in Philly and Darnell Wright in Chicago, but with Wright not showing signs of being more than just a serviceable right tackle and Carter showing flashes of game-breaking ability, that move feels like a miss.

Not every Poles draft decision has worked out, but he has a high success rate. In Poles' first two drafts alone he found Kyler Gordon, Jaquan Brisker, Braxton Jones, Gervon Dexter and Tyrique Stevenson. Pretty good! We need more time to see the 2024 picks in action, but I feel confident that Caleb Williams, Rome Odunze and Tory Taylor are all going to prove themselves to be smart choices.

Poles has improved the Bears roster, but the one area he has failed to adequately address is the offensive line. Caleb Williams is constantly running for his life, just as Justin Fields was before him. The primary goal of this team should be ensuring that Caleb has the right environment to grow and develop, and playing behind a line that, even when healthy, is one of the worst in the league is no way to do that.

It's fair to say at this point that the Eberflus hire was a miss. Poles will be judged for it, but he'll also be judged by how quickly he recognizes his mistake and attempts to fix it. Poles stuck by Eberflus this past offseason when he could have landed Ben Johnson, Jim Harbaugh, or Mike Vrabel instead. GMs don't always get a second bite at the apple if their first head coach fails. If Poles does, he has to nail it this time.

Should Bears fans have confidence in Ryan Poles' ability to take this team to the next level? If he makes the call to move on from Eberflus before next season, I say yes. He's had a discerning eye for talent in the draft, and his good trades outnumber his bad ones. This roster is now in the top half of the league talent-wise, and anybody can see that the one area that needs help is the offensive line. I would be shocked if Poles kept his job and didn't devote major draft resources and free agent money to strengthen that position group.

The Bears are in a much better position under Ryan Poles than they were under Ryan Pace before him. Firing Poles would set the team back, so for that reason, this is an overreaction. Poles needs to stay.