Insider Claims Kevin Warren Is Planning Big Changes To Bears

Debates continue raging about what fate awaits the Chicago Bears after the 2023 season concludes. Barring a miracle, it will be the fifth season in a row where the organization has failed to post a winning record. That will mark the third time it has happened since 1996. Bears fans have had it rough during most of that time. People wonder who might get axed if the final stretch doesn't improve. Most conversations center around quarterback Justin Fields and head coach Matt Eberflus. In all the uncertainty, people haven't discussed the wild card in this situation: team president Kevin Warren.

He arrived in Chicago a year after Eberflus was hired. While the longtime executive maintained that he would be an ally of the current regime, everybody knew there was a real possibility changes could happen if progress didn't show. That is often what happens when things change at the top. With the Bears 3-7 and loads of controversies surrounding the team since September, it isn't crazy to think Warren might want to make changes. We got our first confirmation of this from Albert Breer of the MMQB. He thinks the Bears president is planning changes, which may start with the head coach.

"Nate, I’d say the chances that Bears president Kevin Warren wants to remake the football operation, and maybe be more intimately involved in it after the season, are strong. So I think it’d probably take a late-season surge from the team to get Matt Eberflus a third season in Chicago."

Kevin Warren knows dysfunction when he sees it.

He was part of the Detroit Lions organization in the early 2000s at the height of the Matt Millen era. That is what these past two years have felt like. While GM Ryan Poles is likelier to retain his position, Eberflus has done nothing to justify a third season. This is also part of a playbook Warren has seen enacted in the past. He joined the Minnesota Vikings in 2005 as part of a new power structure. They kept the coaching staff in place to evaluate them while getting situated in the building. That year was marred by injuries, disgruntled players getting traded, and a massive scandal on a party boat. Despite going 9-7, Warren and ownership cleaned house. The head coach was fired and the quarterback was traded.

It appears the same will happen here. The only way it doesn't is if Eberflus and Fields can work some magic down the stretch, putting together a string of wins. History isn't on their side. The pair have six wins total together since the start of 2022. It doesn't feel like that will change, especially against a tougher schedule down the stretch. Kevin Warren may already have plans for life beyond both of them, and it may not end there. He has full authority to overhaul the entire organization. It seems he plans to use it.