Waldron’s time coaching No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams lasted all of nine games.
The Chicago Bears are spiraling out of control (again), and the first person on Matt Eberflus’ doomed coaching staff to be sacrificed is former Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator Shane Waldron.
On Tuesday, the Bears fired Waldron after just nine games in charge of Chicago’s offense. Former Carolina Panthers offensive coordinator Thomas Brown, who oversaw Bryce Young’s rookie season, has been promoted to the OC role, which I suspect he won’t have for very long given Eberflus’ shaky status.
Despite a lot of preseason hyping of their rookie quarterback Caleb Williams, their wide receiver group of DJ Moore, Keenan Allen, and Rome Odunze, plus the free agent signing of running back D’Andre Swift, this has been yet another chapter in the storied history of diarrhea-inducing Bears offenses.
The highlights of the Waldron tenure:
- 24th in points per game and per drive
- 28th in yards per drive
- 31st in yards per play
- 25th in EPA/play
- 30th in FTN Fantasy’s DVOA
- 32nd in QB sack rate
- 31st in 3rd down conversions
It looked like things were turning for the better for Waldron when the Bears scored 36 points against the Carolina Panthers and 35 points against the Jacksonville Jaguars heading into the bye week. Offense.exe stopped working and the Bears have put up a combined 27 points during their three-game losing streak, including no touchdowns against either the Arizona Cardinals or New England Patriots.
Caleb Williams has noticeably been outperformed by Jayden Daniels, Bo Nix, and Drake Maye among the first-round rookie quarterbacks. It’s too early to tell whether he’s not as great as advertised, but this has not been the ideal start to a career for the No. 1 overall pick.
While the Bears offensive line has been ravaged by injuries and Williams has not been great, Waldron has been scrutinized for questionable playcalls throughout his tenure, most notably whatever this was against the Indianapolis Colts.
Access denied.
CBS pic.twitter.com/JVzddH6p0F
— Indianapolis Colts (@Colts) September 22, 2024
As well as handing it off to a backup center who’d never touched the ball on offense before and probably will never touch it again.
The #Bears just handed the ball off to a freaking offensive lineman in a crucial part of a game.
What. In. The. World.pic.twitter.com/o5MVGTRqfW
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) October 27, 2024
And then this masterpiece against the New England Patriots in his farewell game.
Try not to be overly critical of other teams on here. But what is this play call from the Bears? What is the goal here? What is Caleb supposed to do? pic.twitter.com/dgZjl5fjIE
— Evan Lazar (@ezlazar) November 11, 2024
Make no mistake about it: Waldron coached much better offenses in Seattle (all three of his seasons were statistically better than Ryan Grubb’s offense right now), and his stock was high when Geno Smith won Comeback Player of the Year in 2022. There were definitely major frustrations with him when he was Seahawks OC, but it never reached this level of bad.
Maybe Jaxon Smith-Njigba was onto something with his response to CHGO Sports about Waldron becoming the Bears OC.
The Seahawks are scheduled to play the Bears on Thursday Night Football on Dec. 26, sans Waldron. More likely than not, it’ll also be Matt Eberflus’ final home game as Bears head coach. The team-wide vibes are clearly atrocious in Chicago and it’s more than just the offense. With six divisional games still to play, a last-place finish in the NFC North seems almost inevitable.