CHICAGO (WGN) — The ‘highlight’ from Sunday’s slate of NFL football is the Hail Mary that torpedoed the Chicago Bears at the buzzer, but what’s most concerning is the writing left on the wall in its aftermath — the curse of the Chicago quarterback is still alive and well.

It’s a story as tried and true as it comes when considering the DNA of this city.

The Bears turn out steaming piles of poop at quarterback almost as prolifically as Chicago produces crooked politicians, deep-dish pizzas or mustard-laden franks from the Vienna Beef factory on Damen.

Often, the fault has very little to do with the quarterback too.

Last Week: Caleb Williams has arrived and the Bears are a playoff team

Their holy ineptitude in cultivating talent at football’s most important position has become one of the sports world’s modern marvels, making their current situation all the more frustrating when one parks their caboose and takes in the franchise from the perspective of their fans.

For as long as I can remember (context: I’m 28 years old), Chicago has been caught in a seemingly endless cycle of quarterback mediocrity that’s been bluntly beaten into the brains of fans every two, three or four years, going all the way back to the team fans have hoped to recreate every year since 1985.

Those who have known the team longer than I would tell you it’s gone on much longer than that.

Bears faithful know the storyline verbatim at this point, but for the uninitiated, an explainer is needed.

The cycle of mediocrity under center boils down to a lack of consistency in Chicago’s organizational structure. Essentially, general manager ‘A’ drafts or trades for quarterback ‘A’ to pair with head coach and offensive coordinator ‘A,’ only for general manager, head coach, and/or offensive coordinator ‘A’ to be given the boot while quarterback ‘A’ is still in town.

That quarterback is then given a brand new system to learn after their first year in the league, often the most difficult for quarterbacks, and their talent, confidence and any level of football IQ is slowly ground into a pile of mush thanks to an environment that hinders all forms of positive growth.

In my mind, it’s akin to being hired for a career you’ve dreamed of, where the boss has a vision that inspires the employees underneath them, only for your boss to be axed six months into the job and replaced by someone who stands in stark contrast to the person they replaced, causing a cycle of turnover to ensue.

Jay Cutler went through three head coaches and six offensive coordinators during his tenure as the Bears QB from 2009-16. Mitchell Trubisky had two head coaches and three offensive coordinators from 2017-2021. Justin Fields had two head coaches and two offensive coordinators from 2021-23.

Minus Cutler, who was the chosen quarterback of his first coaching staff in Chicago and came to the city via a trade, Trubisky, Fields and the current predetermined savior of the franchise, Caleb Williams, have all experienced some form of overlap from regimes of the previous quarterback, leaving each out of lockstep with the front office and coaching staff that brought them in.

Sunday was an omen prophesizing the continuation of that same cycle.

Game Recap: Chicago Bears shocked at the buzzer by the Commanders, lose on Hail Mary

Months before the 2024 regular season began, General Manager Ryan Poles decided to keep head coach Matt Eberflus around, but jettison Fields and their incumbent offensive coordinator, Luke Getsy, in favor of hiring a new OC and drafting Williams — a generational QB prospect who couldn’t be passed up with last year’s No. 1 pick.

Enter Shane Waldron, with Eberflus in the background.

After a lackluster 1-2 start, the Bears reeled off three straight victories in games they were largely expected to win, thanks in most part to the outstanding play of their rookie quarterback in their new offensive coordinator’s system.

All of a sudden, the rushing attack clicked, Waldron found a way to incorporate the screen game, and Williams threw for 687 yards and seven TD passes to just one interception over those three contests.

It gave rise to the notion Chicago took a step forward by defeating the opponents they were expected to beat, behind QB play that belied the historical standards set by the franchise.

Those three wins coincided with a bye that gave them extra time to prepare for their biggest test of the season so far; a road matchup — that was flexed to a later timeslot — against one of the NFL’s top offenses featuring the No. 2 overall pick in Jayden Daniels, and a de-facto homecoming for Williams, who is native to the Washington D.C. area.

The stars seemed to align neatly for Waldron and Williams to continue building their relationship on the national stage, and cement the Bears’ arrival into the 21st century of NFL offenses.

Instead, Eberflus’s decision-making and Waldron’s play-calling dropped the metaphorical anvil on top of a great performance from their defense, and a gritty comeback fueled by Williams and running back D’Andre Swift.

Swift struck lightning on a 56-yard TD run with under a minute to go in the third, the Bears defense forced two punts and a missed field goal to keep the Commanders at a then season-low 12 points, and Williams put on his Superman cape to lead a drive that gave Chicago a three-point lead with a little more than 20 seconds left in the game.

Then came Eberflus deciding to not defend the sideline on the second play of the game to get Washington in Hail Mary range.

Daniels followed that with 12 seconds of dance moves that set up the Hail Mary after the clock struck zero — which after it landed in Noah Brown’s hands, felt just as depressing to watch as the first time I saw Bridge to Terabithia or Because of Winn-Dixie.

But in reality, that wasn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back Sunday.

It was the coaching staff, both on two specific plays and across nearly the entirety of the game’s first three quarters.

In addition to handing the Commanders 10-15 free yards on the second-to-last play of the game, there was also third-and-goal from the one-yard line with 6:21 to go in the fourth quarter, down 7-12, where Waldron dialed up a trick play — a fullback dive with offensive lineman Doug Kramer set to take the handoff out of the Bears’ goal-line formation for the first-ever time in live action.

The handoff was botched and Kramer booted the ball forward into a mass of bodies at the line of scrimmage, where Washington came away with the fumble recovery.

Is Waldron at fault for trying to pull one deep out of the playbook at a crucial moment? Certainly not, but down five in the fourth quarter against a 5-2 team is not the time to say, “Let’s hand it off to one of our backup linemen from one yard out.”

The right time to pull out that play would have been two weeks ago against the Carolina Panthers, when they were in the same position and up 14-7 with two minutes to go in the first half, or up 30-10 with four-and-a-half minutes left in the game.

Those situations would have been less costly if Chicago failed to convert, and if the Bears actually punched it in, opponents would have had to respect the trick play, causing more stress on opposing defenses in future situations — like the one where it was actually called.

That came alongside an offensive performance over the first 44 minutes of the game that featured six punts and a turnover on downs that culminated in 93 total yards.

Poor offensive game-planning, critical turnovers in big games and time mismanagement were hallmarks of play-callers and coaches who managed the likes of Trubisky and Fields while they were in Chicago.

If Sunday gave any indication the Bears might finally buck that trend, it didn’t.

Williams will have to fight the same fight Fields, Trubisky and so many other quarterbacks have fought before him — and do a better job than the lot combined — because the curse of the Chicago quarterback is still alive and well.

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