(670 The Score) Note to future mutineers — once you successfully nudge your captain off the plank at the point of a cutlass, do something other than immediately run the ship onto the rocks and sink it.
This isn't to argue in any way that the bumbling and overmatched Matt Eberflus deserved to keep his job as Bears head coach but is merely to point out that some fundamental flaws on this team clearly run far deeper. So much was painfully obvious in the Bears' 38-13 loss to the 49ers on Sunday in Santa Clara, a game that was over after two quarters of utter football incompetence that tested both our memories and our patience.
Make it seven losses in a row now for the Bears, the reshuffling of various coaching roles not only failing to deliver the expected immediate dividends of renewed overall effort and supposedly valuable good vibes but somehow making everything look even worse.
What's the opposite of a new coach bump? A speed bump? A stumble? A sinkhole?
Whatever, it seems silly to deliver a performance that thoroughly flaccid after making their case that all of these talented and motivated players just needed a new leader to let them unleash their untapped fury.
Everything looked and sounded good enough all week from Thomas Brown, new offensive coordinator Chris Beatty and new defensive play-caller Eric Washington, until it was time for the players themselves to provide something more than a verbally positive response.
What the Bears did was gain four yards in the entire first half while allowing the 49ers to roll up 319 of their own with every possible kind of explosive play. It was one of the most lopsided halves of NFL football on display in recent history, in fact, and it should be a powerful reminder that this team is far better at talking about themselves than actually playing.
It's also good to remember that lack of stupidity isn't equivalent to smarts and that the Bears' issues might take more time and resources to repair than anybody even knows.
The players were correct that Eberflus was bad at his job. Hell, we all were correct. Because he was, objectively and painfully obviously so.
But it's time for the Bears to figure out why right after they got exactly what they wanted — the franchise responding in a way it hadn't in its entire existence — they met the moment with such a collective and embarrassing disintegration.
Ryan Poles is going to go through it too, with reasonable scrutiny of his roster decisions now in tighter focus, especially after his team was just dismantled by an opponent missing its two best running backs, best pass rusher and three starting offensive linemen.
It didn't help at a recent press conference that Poles looked like Kevin Warren's misbehaving son at a parent/teacher meeting, and now he has one last shot to find a coach and savior — oh, wait ... "leader of men" or "program leader" — while also navigating around Warren's puffy vainglory amid all the cobwebbed weirdness of the old McCaskey house.
It would be helped along by the simple fundamentals like blocking, tackling and not dropping passes. You know, the very basic standards to which players are held. Everything would be better if the Bears worked as hard as they could, tried on every possession and evinced proper awareness of every situation.
If only there were an easy way for them to remember such things. A mnemonic of some kind might help, like an acronym.
Dan Bernstein is the co-host of the Bernstein & Harris Show on middays from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. on 670 The Score. You can follow him on Twitter @Dan_Bernstein.