It was a Hail Mary pass that launched the bears into the bottomless pit they are currently falling into.

Now, Matt Eberflus has thrown his own Hail Mary pass in the form of an offensive coordinator change from Shane Waldron to Thomas Brown. He can only hope there’s a Tyrique Stevenson type on the other end who could turn him over to a receiver and save his coaching regime.

It would be nice for Bears fans to think that a move like firing an OC could alter their fortunes, but the truth is that there’s far too much stacked against them to keep their spiral from stopping until now. ‘until it finally ended with the dismissal of Eberflus. There are examples of OC firings contributing to a team’s immediate success, the latest being in Buffalo where they went 6-1 with Joe Brady after firing Ken Dorsey. But this was a team with a proven, winning structure already in place.

Brown ahead of the game this time

Having Brown take over a Bears offense with a system he’s worked with for three years gives him an advantage over last year when he had to run an emergency procedure when the Carolina Panthers called him.

Brown had only been working under Frank Reich and in this system for six games when he first had the task of making play calls in the offense. His three years under Sean McVay with the Rams represent a better chance to succeed with the Bears than last year, when the Panthers averaged 11.4 points per game with his play.

Personnel and how he uses these players is key.

This is a very familiar situation for Brown in that his quarterback is a rookie and the first overall pick. And his team has one of the best defenses in the league.

Last year, Carolina finished fourth in the league in defense, but still only won two games. The Bears are now 13th in defense, but seventh in points allowed and seventh in pass defense. They have allowed the fewest passing touchdowns, ranking No. 1 in red zone defense and seventh in defensive third-down percentage.

So there is evidence that better support for their defense could be an encouraging factor.

They played solid complementary football during their three-game winning streak immediately preceding Waldron’s three-game losing streak and dismissal.

The problems

There are three real problems with this team trying to change offensive coordinators mid-term and hoping to succeed.

One is a rookie quarterback. Another question is how far into a hopeless pit they have already fallen. The last one is their offensive line.

Even with the experience Brown gained last year working with a No. 1 overall recruit in Bryce Young, it wasn’t necessarily positive. Young had a better passer rating with Frank Reich calling plays than when Brown called them, 76.5 to 73.1. He didn’t improve and this year was still looking bad until he made big strides in the last few games under new head coach Dave Canales.

Expecting a rookie passer to grasp any coordinator change when he’s already struggling to understand the NFL is a real ask. Maybe a veteran could handle it, but a rookie just past the halfway point of his first season will struggle with all the changes.

To turn the team around, it’s not enough to work with Williams to restore his and the players’ confidence in him. The teammates themselves already seem disillusioned by the whole mess. That’s the second problem: how far into the sewers they’ve already gone. Who has already checked?

A few, like TJ Edwards, said the players didn’t do it.

However, Cole Kmet saw players make mistakes in practice earlier this season and on Monday, cornerback Jaylon Johnson was on WSCR AM-670’s Spiegel and Holmes for a regular radio spot and hardly acted as if this situation was exaggerated when asked if there were any players who didn’t work as hard as others.

“Yeah, there’s no doubt about it,” he said.

That may be the truth, but as long as that’s the case, it reflects poorly on the coaching staff and Matt Eberflus, who constantly talks about effort and bases his HITS principle on it.

Fundamental things like this just don’t change overnight, in the middle of a season. There is no way a team with the lack of momentum and direction described in these stories can turn around, regardless of coordinator or quarterback.

It’s all about supporting Williams

Finally, Williams is the future of the team and needs experiences to rely on while playing, but getting beat and tossed around like a rag doll won’t keep him healthy or provide him with the valuable games necessary to ultimately succeed.

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The offensive line is in tatters. There’s no other way to say it.

When three starters are out, they play a third-string center at guard, and both tackles are injured, the hits will continue. Teven Jenkins is their best lineman and has been injured five of the last six games without missing a single start. The Bears allowed 38 sacks, second-most in the league. They have allowed 15 in the last two games.

You can sit and watch film of Williams forever and conclude that some sacks are his fault, but until they can give him the time he needs to settle in and throw more often, there is no no value in their rookie even being on the field. They can only hope that the online hurts end.

For all these reasons, the Eberflus regime seems doomed and the problem is that it still has eight matches to play.

If they move to fire a head coach now, one wonders how much value they will have for Williams in the final eight games.

Eberflus can at least run a defense and call defensive plays. When Eric Washington did that in Carolina, it didn’t go well.

As long as Eberflus is there, their defense can at least provide some type of support to the problematic offense and give them a chance to compete in games.

This, in turn, brings more value to Williams’ development as he is in closer situations and not always out there in downtime. This allows for one last vestige of stability that the QB can learn from.

So keeping Eberflus until it is at least proven that his Hail Mary attempt with Brown failed is both fair to him and to Williams in terms of stability and development.

Once they know for sure the team’s fate, they can finally fire a head coach later in the season with a few games left, ending this silly Bears story of never firing a coach- leader over the course of a season.

With Green Bay, Minnesota, Detroit and San Francisco coming right in, and a big break before the 49ers game, it shouldn’t be too long.

Twitter: BearsOnSI