Gerald Everett spent five seasons playing for Chicago Bears offensive coordinator Shane Waldron.
Coach and tight end logged for seasons together with the Bears’ upcoming opponent – the Los Angeles Rams – where the former was first the latter’s position coach. Everett and Waldron spent one season together with the Seattle Seahawks. Few in the Bears locker room know what this offense is supposed to look like better than Everett.
The eighth-year veteran is taking a daily approach, though, when asked how close the current offense is to reaching its supposed peak.
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“Well, the only way to know that is at the conclusion of the next game, which is Sunday,” Everett told Clocker Sports on September 27. “So that’s when we’ll know exactly if we’re tipping or iceberg or not or if we still need to, obviously, get back to work and keep pounding away. But not the start we wanted.
“Given the talent that we have, the potential that lies in this locker room, I think anyone would be disappointed in our progressions or our regressions, I guess, that we’ve shown. And really just taking it on the chin and looking at ourselves in the mirror is the only way to go about it.”
Everett says they have done just that.
But the Bears are not looking to reinvent the wheel at 1-2 with an offense that ranks 22nd in points and 30th in yards. This is still the group that was confident in themselves coming into the season and they are eager to regain that feeling.
“It’s day-by-day,” Everett said. “We’re just taking it one play at a time. Just trying to stab one play at a time, making one productive play at a time – pass, run, block, strip, sack, interception. Obviously, the defense is playing exceptionally well, and it carried us even though we couldn’t get it done the past two games. There’s still something to be optimistic about, so that’s where we are.”
Everett’s optimism is in the same vein as left tackle Braxton Jones, who said the tape shows progress that often goes unnoticed amid their struggles. It has not just been the players, either, with Waldron also taking arrows over his play calling.
He has shouldered blame for the follies in the Bears’ Week 3 loss to the Indianapolis Colts.
Waldron also invited more input from the Bears’ leaders, like Marcedes Lewis who said his message was to coach the players harder. How did Waldron handle the input?
“Just his approach in day-to-day installs and just the way he is at practice,” Everett said. “His demeanor hasn’t changed. Unwavering personality, and I can’t say enough about Shane. I’ve known him the entire duration of my career. He shows no change, really. It’s just that we have to collectively come together and put a good show together.”
Jones also spoke of leaning into messaging from the coaching staff. He pointed to head coach Matt Eberflus, whose seat is as hot as Waldron’s in the court of public opinion, saying the locker room blocks out the outside noise.
That does not mean there are no conflicts in the group.
It does mean that they have not lost sight of the common goal – Eberflus and several players often repeat a line about “being where their feet are” – and that bodes well going forward.
“It’s a professional business and in the professional business, you can’t stop just because you’re not getting the results you want,” Everett said. “We all have a great understanding of that, and we’re just going to try to keep putting our heads together and just try to get one at a time.”
One of Bears GM Ryan Poles’ ‘Favorite Human Beings’ Returns
The Bears quietly brought back defensive tackle Travis Bell, adding the 2023 seventh-round pick to the practice squad this week. Bell’s circuitous journey back to the Bears included stops with the Atlanta Falcons and Cincinnati Bengals.
If nothing else, he absolutely appreciates the journey itself.
“Most definitely battle tested; mentally, physically, and spiritually,” Bell told Cloocker Sports on Friday. “I went around the Sun just to come back. The best part about it, I was able to deal with a lot of different great guys in the league and learn a lot. So I don’t feel bad, but – I appreciate the experience. I’ll say that. I appreciate the experience, and it was much needed for me.”
Bell returned to a resounding welcome, with 2023 holdovers greeting him cheerfully as he prepared his locker.
He felt that and Poles’ initial sentiments playing out.
“Man, it was like a family reunion,” Bell said. “Just coming back, being with all the guys that I grinded with my first year in the league, so it was just a blessing to be here.
“That just confirmed the feelings that I thought he had for me. It’s pretty special to know you got somebody like that backing you up there, for you. He just wants to see me be great for the most part.
If there is one lesson Bell learned on his travels?
“It is control super control,” Bell said. “Adversity’s gonna hit. It’s just how you deal with it. So the one thing I’ll say is, ‘control what you can control.’”
Colts LB Dishes on Matt Eberflus
Eberflus’ hold on the Bears’ locker room is notable, especially in light of an account from one of his former players. Colts linebacker Zaire Franklin offered a rather damning account of playing for Eberflus.
Franklin played for Eberflus from the former’s first season in the league and the latter’s first as a defensive coordinator until 2021 when the Bears head coach landed his current position.
“After my fourth year, my contract year, s***, I’m a free agent. I’m unrestricted. I’m going to free agency. You probably going to be a head coach. Everybody knows you the hottest defensive coordinator out. You going to have your pick of whatever job you really want. And s***, whether you want to come back, m***********, you ain’t got to bring me back. I have my own market,” Franklin said on the “Trenches Show with Zaire Franklin” on September 25.
“At the end of all that, bro, we sat down. It was me and him, one-on-one, and I told him straight up. I said, ‘Listen, I appreciated everything that you told me. I appreciate everything that you gave me, whatever. But you know I felt like … my issue came is when I won [position battles]. And when I won you ain’t give me my victory. You always stepped on it, you always did something slick. You always went out your way to make sure that I didn’t shine the way that I knew I could because you knew who I was.”
Franklin said Eberflus told him that he did not handle substitutions, putting that task on someone else.
That was enough for Franklin.
“I’m, ‘So you can’t talk to me as a man right now?’” Franklin said he thought at that moment of the interaction. “It’s not even that deep. I ain’t got no ill will, I ain’t going to rumble you in the office. You know me better than that. Let’s just have a conversation about what was really going on.
“At this point, we don’t owe each other nothing other than the truth; at least I thought. And then, in that moment, when he ain’t even give me that, we’d never have anything to ever speak about again.
Franklin accused Eberflus of not believing in him and going out of his way to hold him back during their time together, saying the coach would not tell him calls when he was a backup.
A seventh-round pick by the Colts in 2018, Franklin became a full-time starter in 2021.
That was Eberflus’ final season in Indy, and the linebacker started 11 of the 17 games he played in for the Colts. He has started 36 of a possible 37 games over the past two-plus seasons.
“He would go out of his way not to tell me s*** or to keep it from me. It’d be like what type of weird s*** is you on? N**** would get mad if I asked a question. In the [meeting] room. Like me asking intelligent questions was challenging his authority or something like that. When I’m only asking the question that I know your superstar really want to ask, but he —. I’m asking the question for the room.”
Franklin praised former Colts special teams coordinator Bubba Ventrone, now in the same position with the Cleveland Browns, for his honesty at the time.
He also admitted times Eberflus was right about him and their good times
But Franklin emphasized his relationships with current Colts defensive coordinator Gus Bradley and linebackers coach Cato June in contrast to Eberflus. He compared that relationship to Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and his former head coach Brian Flores.
That is when Franklin dropped the most damning from what was a scathing review of a former coach.
“It’s funny because me and E got into it, and he pretty much was saying, ‘As a coach, it’s not my job to believe in you,’” Franklin said. “He said that’s a new generation thing. But you know how he get. He hate our generation. But he’s pretty much saying … it’s not his job as a coach to believe in you. It’s his job to give you information and try to put you in the best position. But it’s not theoretically his job to believe in you.”
A lot can change in three years.
Many things can and have been said about Eberflus, including from former Bears QB Justin Fields. But Franklin’s sentiments are so far unique.