Rambling Lemurian

I was at the library yesterday with my 4 year old. She’s a big fan of the library. We were getting ready to leave and she asked to take a look at the fish tank before we left the children’s area. I said sure and while she went to the fish tank which was just 15 feet away, I got distracted looking through the shelf of books on Native American history. About 30 seconds later I turn towards the fish tank and Charlie’s not there. I’m confused since I figured I would have seen her leave from my peripheral vision and Parent Sixth Sense, but she was nowhere nearby.

I didn’t panic. I didn’t get upset. I was genuinely kind of confused at the sudden disappearance, but it’s not the first time she snuck off while I wasn’t looking. But I know from past experience she doesn’t do it recklessly (relative term for a 4 year old) or to run away from me. She would probably be headed to where we would normally be headed to if we were leaving the library. Sure enough, after 10 seconds of confusion from me, I spot her at our normal checkout kiosk, patiently waiting for me. She just assumed I would have been following her. I calmly asked her next time to just let me know she’s leaving. She said ok. No harm, no foul. And on we went.

I suppose this is a small example of what is now trendily called Lighthouse Parenting? The idea of lighthouse parenting is that you have boundaries for your kids and you offer them support, but otherwise you give them the freedom to make some mistakes and figure things out on their own. Basically the opposite of helicopter parenting where a parent is constantly hovering over their kid to protect them, tell them exactly how to do something, defend them from every inconvenience, and do everything for them. I don’t know about you, but lighthouse parenting just seems like normal parenting to me. Let kids be kids and let them grow. It’s not that complicated, though the temptation to be over-protective is understandable.

Back when I was a real manager, I found my management style to basically be the same as my parenting style, if one can even call it that. I hate micro-managing, as I’m sure pretty much everyone does. And the nature of the job I had and managed meant no matter what there’d be mistakes made. And if you did do everything 100% right, it meant you were probably only 20% as productive as you needed to be. So my job as a manager was to intensely train new employees and push for as many systematic improvements as possible to make their jobs easier to cut down on the natural mistakes of the job. One of the department rules my boss had was “Don’t fuck up”. I understood his point, and it came from a personal story he had when he was a lowly analyst. But quietly I amended that rule for my team. Fucking up is normal. It’s part of life and sometimes it’s unavoidable. I made my rule “don’t fuck up again”. The message being that you’re going to fuck up to variable degrees. But you need to learn from them and not make the same mistakes again and again. Because that’s what gets you fired.

And that’s where the Bears come in. The Bears are in yet another coaching and quarterback crisis. For decades the Bears have searched for a true franchise quarterback, and for the past 15 years they’ve searched for a franchise coach. We’re well aware of the history and all the graphics of the dozens of starting QBs over the years and the failed offensive coordinators. I think the problem at this point is that the Bears as a franchise have become so increasingly desperate to “get things right” that they’re suffocating their chances at having a real QB. And it’s been exacerbated this season with the unnatural pairing of Caleb Williams and Matt Eberflus.

Eberflus is a defensive coach. He’s a good, maybe even great defensive coordinator. His defensive units going back to the Colts have always been good and it’s what got him the Bears head coach gig. But defensive coaches tend to be very conservative with football strategy. They like to run the ball, have a quick passing game, and win the turnover battle at all costs. Hockey coaches tend to be super conservative too, and I always think hockey coaches seem happier losing 2-1 than winning 7-5 because giving up that many goals bothers them a lot more than scoring a lot of goals. I think it’s kind of the same with defensive football coaches. If they take care of the ball on offense and limit the opposing team, then they’ll win more games, right? Maybe. It worked in the Bears first game this season, but hasn’t since. The Bears defense allowed 19 points to the Patriots and the offense had no turnovers. But they still lost 19-3 and their offensive coordinator Shane Waldron was fired. And most importantly, their new franchise QB looks as lost as ever.

Caleb Williams’ skillset is that of a gunslinger. He’s elusive, he can improvise, he can throw at weird arm angles, he can scramble and run downfield, and he can throw on the run. Yet the Bears offensive game plan so far has not attempted to showcase those skills. It’s clear from statements from Eberflus and Waldron that they’re trying to develop Williams into a pocket passing QB and cut down on mistakes. And in theory that makes sense. Look back at Super Bowl history and try to find Super Bowl Winning QBs who aren’t pocket passers. The only one that stands out is Patrick Mahomes but in reality he is a pocket passer within the Andy Reid system, but with the same sort of skillset as Williams to improvise when needed. Fair enough. But also look through that same list and see how many game managing QBs have won Super Bowls. The guys that aren’t “elite” but they take care of the ball, take the easy plays, and rely on a good running game. Not many, right? You probably have to go all the way back to Trent Dilfer when he won because of an elite defense.

Trent Dilfer cannot be the goal for Caleb Williams. His ceiling is too high, and that bar is way too low. And in this era of NFL Football, Trent Dilfer doesn’t win you much. But Eberflus’s conservative nature is trying too hard to develop Caleb’s pocket passer skills instead of allowing him to be who made him worthy of being the consensus #1 pick. In Week 3, Caleb Williams had a pretty strong game considering he was only playing in his third career game. After going scoreless in the first half, Williams ended up 33 for 52, 363 yards, 2 TDs, and 2 INTs. The Bears lost 21-16, in part due to a crucial Williams interception and a lost fumble in the 4th quarter. But all the arrows were pointing up for Williams after the game despite his rookie mistakes. Yet after the game, Eberflus told reporters that he wished Williams would take more checkdowns and be more careful with the ball. Cut down on turnovers. Yes, technically fewer turnovers would be better but this is something you need to live with when you have a rookie gunslinger/playmaker QB. Eberflus honestly should have just talked about how good Williams was in the 2nd half, proud of the progress he’s shown to keep the Bears in that game, and left it at that. But it was clear from some of his comments that he and the Bears coaching staff wanted to coach that aggressiveness out of Caleb’s game, the same aggressiveness that got them back in the game after a piss-poor effort and game plan in the first half. It’s also worth noting that following this game, the Bears offensive leaders had a meeting with Shane Waldron to express their concerns about gameplanning and playcalling with him, which Waldron then made public. Clearly players and coaches were not on the same page and did not recognize their respective strengths, and that starts at the QB position.

Eberflus knows he’s on the hot seat. He should have known since last season. A late season run through a cupcake schedule where he racked up some wins thanks to his defense is what saved his job and the chance to coach Caleb Williams. And he went into this season desperate to save his job. Being the defensive-minded coach that he is, he figured interceptions from Williams would lead to losses, and he personally cannot afford those losses. So he wanted Williams to be more conservative. But it’s clearly backfired at this point. Ironically what he should have done to save his job is to not try too hard. Just let Caleb Williams be Caleb Williams and figure out the NFL on his own. And you can see glimpses of that. Williams has been at his best when he plays up-tempo and has more time to assess the defense pre-snap and direct traffic, change play calls, move the protection around. But it seems the coaching staff has taken that away since the Bye Week. Plays are taking longer to get in, Williams has less time on the play clock to read the defense and make adjustments. And it’s led to some horrible offensive play.

That’s not to say it’s ALL on the coaching staff. Caleb Williams deserves criticism. His accuracy has not been good. It’s been downright bad much of the season. He takes too long to throw at times, though it’s hard to know how much of that is his fault versus receivers not getting in their breaks fast enough, or just bad play-calling and play designs with no disguises. The offensive line has been dreadful all season. D’Andre Swift was bad to start the season. DJ Moore appears to have had a weirdly shitty attitude all year which can’t help develop chemistry with Williams. But ultimately all of that is supposed to be mitigated, if not fixed, by quality coaches.

It’s too late for Eberflus now. There’s no chance he survives as the Bears head coach after this season. It’s just too much dysfunction. Too many coaches he’s had to fire or force to resign. Too many late game meltdowns. Too many publicly upset players questioning the coaching staff. And too many losses. So we as Bears fans look again for a new head coach and new offensive coordinator.

I hope this time the Bears don’t get another timid defensive coach. Defensive coaches like to show off their toughness and grit and old-school nature, but too often they operate through fear. Fear of turning the ball over. Fear of giving up field position. Fear of giving up the chance for a tie. Fear of drama. And it usually backfires with a young QB. Young QBs are like children. If you lower the bar for them too much and try to make everything easy, they will not see how high their ceiling really is. Sure they might fall down, make the wrong choices, and throw a bad interception now and again. But they’ll learn from that as long as you let them. So don’t lower their ceiling just because you’re desperate to finish 8-9. Show them how far they can go and eventually they’ll raise their floor.