Grading the Matt Eberflus hire

Now that all nine NFL teams that were looking for a new head coach has hired — or reported to have hired — their guy, SB Nation has graded each team’s new head coach addition. The hit rate on immediate grades in regards to any sports topic is usually around 1% (trust me the math checks out), but that doesn’t stop anyone from compiling them or complaining about them.

Whether it be grades about coaching hires, GM hires, drafts, free agency, or anything else you want to discuss, a true grade shouldn’t be handed out until after the test is taken, and the test in this case would probably start to come into focus sometime in 2023.

SB Nation didn’t give the Chicago Bears’ Matt Eberflus their worst grade, that went to the Texans hiring of Lovie Smith and the Saints’ Dennis Allen, but they did give the Eberflus’ hire a D. Here’s their reasoning behind it.

The remarkable thing about the Bears hiring Matt Eberflus was how early it came in the cycle. Chicago was one of the first teams to hire a head coach, and nobody expected the Colts’ defensive coordinator to be a hot commodity.

I tend to think too much is made of a coach’s prior role, but it at least offers insight into their top priorities. For the life of me I cannot understand why Chicago went for a defensive-minded coach when the No. 1 priority should be to develop Justin Fields. It just makes no sense to me.

Eberflus must have interviewed extremely well, because this is a serious head scratcher. He’s not exactly young, or dynamic, or anything you’d expect Chicago to be looking for. It could be good, but the tea leaves are pointing to this being another mediocre coaching hire for the Bears. It’s a damn shame.

Eberflus wasn’t in my top 5, but I think a D is a bit harsh when considering the offensive staff that he brought in to work with Fields. It’s also not like this hire was a huge shock around the league, as he interviewed elsewhere this cycle (and in 2020 and 2019) and was a finalist in Jacksonville this year.

Time will tell if bucking the offensive head coach trend will pay off for the Bears, but for now I’m good with the Bears process and how it ended up.