Matt Eberflus’ future in Chicago pretty much rides on his new OC

We’re past the halfway point of the season, the challengers are starting to separate themselves from the pretenders, and there’s a lot to come in the Tuesday notes. So let’s not waste time…

• The Chicago Bears’ move Tuesday morning didn’t come out of left field — Matt Eberflus himself indicated that change could be coming Monday during his press conference. It’s not entirely unjustified, either, considering the Bears haven’t scored a touchdown since losing on a Hail Mary at Washington two weeks ago.

But there’s a bigger question here unrelated to an unhappy fan base getting a scalp as Chicago moves away from offensive coordinator Shane Waldron and toward Thomas Brown as the team’s play-caller.

And what exactly will this solve?

Brown is a good coach. But his play-calling experience, at any level, is limited to what he did last year in Carolina, when Frank Reich started as the Panthers’ play-caller, then turned the duties over to Brown, took them back three weeks later , and then was fired, paving the way for Brown to call the offense over the final six weeks of the season. He’s never coached quarterbacks, and at least on paper, he doesn’t really solve the problem.

And a big part of the problem is that there has been very little experience with the staff coaching the No. 1 pick in the draft who starts at quarterback. Waldron had none. Brown had a year of that and it didn’t turn out well last year. Quarterbacks coach Kerry Joseph had none. So while there was acumen and expertise there, the staff flew blind and took a quarterback like Caleb Williams from an Air Raid offense at USC to the pros.

Perhaps the Bears will go outside the organization now to fill that void and get Brown some help. Judging by how the offense has played, the staff could definitely use some.

• Obviously, there are big questions with Eberflus as well, and it’s fair to say his future in Chicago hinges heavily on Brown’s job performance.

The NFL has fired two offensive coordinators so far this season, and they happen to be the two guys Eberflus hired to run his offense with the Bears-Waldron and now ex-Raiders coordinator Luke Getsy.

So it stands to reason that ownership likely won’t let Eberflus hire a third at the position after this year. So Brown flipping Williams and saving the Bears’ season is likely Eberflus’ ticket out of this. And if Brown delivers, then Brown would probably be an easy choice to stick with as OC.

• Many people deserve credit for what has been built in Kansas City. Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid are clearly at the front of that line. Travis Kelce and Chris Jones would be next. And there’s also a fleet of assistants like Matt Nagy and Steve Spagnuolo.

But for one reason or another, you don’t hear much about Brett Veach.

So we’ll say it: The Kansas City Chiefs’ GM should be right in the running for Executive of the Year.

Now, having Mahomes is like entering the season with a two-touchdown lead on most teams, for sure. But Veach was among the first champions for Mahomes in the Chiefs’ building, a year before Kansas City traded him 17 spots in the NFL draft. And as Mahomes has developed into a lock to make it to Canton one day, the challenges for the GM have changed.

With Mahomes, Kelce and Jones on large veteran contracts, the path to filling out the rest of the roster has narrowed. And while it’s a good problem to have, it nonetheless needs to be solved, and really the primary way to solve it hair to get through the draft.

Veach has done that, and then some. It turned out how the Chiefs stole a wild one from the Denver Broncos on Sunday, when not one but two of his young defensive stars, Leo Chenal and George Karlaftis, burst through the Denver front to block Will Lutz’s game-winning field goal. Then again, it appears every week, and the whole list.

Of the 11 guys who started on defense for the Chiefs on Sunday, nine were homegrown. Seven of those nine are on rookie deals, with Jones and rotating DT Tershawn Wharton being the exceptions. The other two were sensible veteran signings, Justin Reid and Drue Tranquill, both of whom have become nifty, versatile pieces for Spagnuolo.

And just as the defense has affordable rising stars like Nick Bolton, Trent McDuffie, Chenal and Karlaftis, the offense has guys like Trey Smith and Isiah Pacheco (and Creed Humphrey fresh off a rookie deal) to complement the team’s expensive vets like . like Mahomes, Kelce and Joe Thuney.

In the end, of course, it will lead to more good problems coming down the pike – as they choose who to keep and who to let go.

It is never easy to navigate.

But it’s clear the Chiefs have the right guy to do it.

• Dak Prescott’s injury is, of course, a big one and likely extinguishes any hope the Dallas Cowboys had of getting back to the playoffs.

Dallas (3–6) already has more losses than it had in any of the last three years and will now move forward with Cooper Rush (and maybe eventually Trey Lance). It features a battered, struggling rookie left tackle, Tyler Guyton. The best player on the roster, Micah Parsons, has also struggled with injuries. The defense hasn’t played well and the team looked dead on Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles.

The key here, to me, is how competitive the Cowboys are looking forward. They have all the information they want in January about how Prescott looks and plays in the offense as it currently stands. This year, unlike the past three, will not be judged by playoff success.

Can Mike McCarthy really get the team going again? And will that be enough?

Keep in mind that in order to keep McCarthy, since he is in a contract year, Dallas will have to sign a brand new contract. In many places, winning 12 games three years in a row like McCarthy would buy the kind of mulligan year McCarthy is going through. But Dallas, as we all know, is not most places. Which explains both the contract situation and how the Cowboys are now embroiled in it.

• Speaking with New Orleans Saints interim coach Darren Rizzi the other day, he and I covered the interesting fact that special teams coaches’ options have been pretty limited over the past 20 years. Ravens coach John Harbaugh is in so many ways their patron saint. Baltimore brought him aboard from Philly in 2008. He is 167-102 since, which is the NFL’s fourth-best record in that span. He’s won a Super Bowl, the AFC North five times, and made the playoffs in 11 of 16 seasons (this year will almost certainly make it 12 of 17). He is eighth all-time in playoff wins with 12.

And yet, somehow, no trend followed it.

Ex-Giants coach Joe Judge is the only coach whose NFL experience was primarily on special teams employed in the 16 hiring cycles since Harbaugh got the Ravens job. So when I spoke with Rizzi, who was actually a head coach at two different schools, I asked if he had given up on the idea that it would happen to him at the NFL level.

“I’d be lying to you if I said it hasn’t been frustrating,” he said. “I feel like there’s been guys that have had opportunities where you feel like, I’m more prepared than that guy. It’s just human nature. At the same time, you must stay ready. You have no chance if you are not prepared. All the things I told you earlier, I really believe with special teams coaches. They are very well prepared. This (his circumstances) is the alternate path on your way to becoming a head coach.

“At the end of the day, it’s an eight-week audition for me to put my best foot forward. If I put this plan in place this week and it didn’t work, I might start getting some side-eye. Everyone bought in. If you get 100 % buy-in, so let’s see what the result is, I told the team that the challenge will be, Can we copy it? Can we duplicate the effort, the energy that everyone had all week? We’ll see what happens next week. …

“My path all my life has been alternative. I coached Division II football. I’m not worried about the alternative path – whatever it takes to get there. Let’s see how the next seven weeks go and we’ll take it from there.’

• We’ll have more on the conclusion of the 2024 International Series over the weekend, but the plan for next year is to go eight games overseas. NFL owners have already agreed to a model that would force each of them to give up a home game every four years and play internationally every other year. The eight-game setup allows for that, where 16 teams go each year.

As for where the games will be, the NFL is currently contractually obligated to play two games at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London and a third at Wembley under the Jaguars’ deal, at least one game in Germany and one game in Madrid next season. That adds up to five. Commissioner Roger Goodell said on NFL Network that the league plans to return to Mexico City and Brazil, and that Ireland (which has hosted college games) is also under consideration.

• One of the biggest concerns coming from the New York Jets locker room after Robert Saleh was fired for five games was the effect it would have on the team’s defense. By firing Saleh, owner Woody Johnson effectively removed the defense’s architect and spread its coordinator, Jeff Ulbrich, thin in getting him to adjust to the big job.

Well, we now have a five-game test to put against Saleh’s five games earlier this year, and it looks like the punters were right. Through five games, the Jets allowed 17 points and 255.8 yards per game. Over their past five, they are allowing 25.8 points and 348.8 points per game.

That’s a pretty significant difference.

• I’ll be interested to see what Drew Lock does if he gets in there as the New York Giants’ starter, which seems more and more likely now that New York is clearly out of the playoffs and the contractual risk that the Giants would take. plays Daniel Jones (we explained that in detail on Monday).

• The release of Tyrel Dodson was fascinating as he has been the starting linebacker all season for the Seattle Seahawks. But as I see it, it’s also indicative of the big scheme change that’s taking place, from 14 years with Pete Carroll to a Ravens-style defense with Mike Macdonald.

• RIP John Robinson – his Rams teams of the late 1980s were always overshadowed by the dynastic San Francisco 49ers of that era in the NFC West. But they were always entertaining, behind guys like Jim Everett, Eric Dickerson and Flipper Andersen. And Robinson stands decades later as one of the few coaches capable of building consistent winners at both the major college and NFL levels.