Pride of Detroit
*It’s a big bounce-back spot, and we asked @*WCGridiron about this NFC North matchup between the Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears.
More Detroit Lions football is right around the corner, and we would never pass up the opportunity to get some intel from the opponent’s perspective. We called on Bill Zimmerman once again from WindyCityGridiron.com to give us some insight into the Chicago Bears, the difference a month makes for a team with an interim head coach, Caleb Williams’ interception-less streak, and what has happened with the defense after such a hot start ahead of this Week 16 matchup.
The Bears season started with promise when they got off to a 4-2 start, and the team looked like it was setting up to be a part of the mix when it came playoff time.
After eight straight losses, and some of them of the heartbreaking variety, what’s just the overall level of confidence in the direction the organization is headed after having so much promise two months ago?
I would say dumpster fire is what fans think of the organization (again). Matt Eberflus is gone, but the attention is now squarely on the shoulders of GM Ryan Poles and the heat is really being turned up on him as well. This season has become a complete disaster and the question is, can you keep the general manager because he made one phenomenal trade with the Carolina Panthers and the rest of his body of work is very pedestrian?
I think about two or three weeks ago, there wasn’t much heat on Poles, but an article by Dan Wiederer in the Chicago Tribune that was well-sourced put a lot of heat on Poles and I think changed people’s perception of the GM. The article was fair but it put two decisions, the hiring of Matt Eberflus and the acquisition of free agent OL Nate Davis, squarely on Poles’ shoulders. Those two people are about the most disliked among Bears fans right now and the quickest way to get fans to sour on Poles is to let them know that those decisions were on him.
It would be interesting to know if those sources were inside Halas Hall because if Kevin Warren wanted to move on from Poles and bring in his own guy, he needed to sour Poles’ public image and he has done that successfully. Again, if he was a source in the story which I have no information in saying if he actually was.
Thomas Brown has twice taken on the interim tag in Chicago: first as the offensive coordinator replacing Shane Waldron and now as the head coach of the Bears. There isn’t a ton that’s going to change at this point in the season in that transition between head coaches, but what have you noticed in terms of team tendencies between Matt Eberflus and Brown over these couple of weeks?
That they aren’t any better and that they are worse...
