Bears' Eberflus takes responsibility after firing second offensive coordinator in 10 months

LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — Matt Eberflus insisted he takes responsibility for the Chicago Bears' failures on offense.

He also realizes he's on his third play-caller in 2 1/2 seasons as coach after firing an offensive coordinator for the second time in 10 months. He let Shane Waldron go this week and promoted passing game coordinator Thomas Brown, hoping he can solve the problems and get the most out of rookie quarterback Caleb Williams.

“I take full accountability for that,” Eberflus said Wednesday, a day after the Bears announced the change. “I take full responsibility for that, and it’s got to get better. It’s gotta get better. The details of creativity have to improve and it’s got to improve this week.”

Waldron lasted just nine games after he was hired in January to replace the fired Luke Getsy. Brown takes over an offense that ranks near the bottom of the NFL.

The Bears are averaging fewer yards per game than only two teams. New England is one of them, and the Patriots beat Chicago 19-3 at Soldier Field on Sunday.

“I’m not really looking into quick fixes," Brown said. "I want long-term solutions to kind of get us going in the right direction. The goal again is to have success and have success immediately. I’m not doing anything to be a loser or have a loser’s mentality. My players don’t either.”

Williams was looking forward to seeing how the offense performs with Brown calling the plays.

“I think we’ll do a good job of marrying everything up together, making everything look the same,” Williams said. “And then from there, you’ll get a few easier passes, a few extra layups. I think it’ll help us in the run game. I think it’ll help us in the pass game being able to do that. And then, I think from there it provides a little bit more explosiveness for us as an offense.”

The Bears have gone without a touchdown in back-to-back games for the first time since 2004. It’s been 23 consecutive possessions without a TD since they scored in the final minute at Washington in Week 8, when they lost on a Hail Mary pass by Jayden Daniels.

The offense has two touchdowns in 34 drives in the three games since Chicago’s bye. The Bears won three in a row prior to their off week, and Williams and the offense looked as if they were finding their rhythm, even if they were doing it against struggling teams.

Players expressed frustration about the offense to Eberflus. But he insisted they didn't call for any firings.

“I don’t think anybody really asked for (Waldron) to be gone,” receiver DJ Moore said. “We expressed our frustration, but never to have somebody’s livelihood taken away. I mean, it’s hard, but on to Thomas, and we got his back.”

Brown was hired as Chicago's passing game coordinator after interviewing for the job that went to Waldron. He's now in a familiar spot, taking over play-calling duties during the season and doing it with a No. 1 overall pick at quarterback.

Carolina's offensive coordinator last season, Brown took over play-calling duties from coach Frank Reich, who eventually took them back before he was fired with the Panthers at 1-10 and quarterback Bryce Young struggling.

Brown is now working with Williams, who seemed to be progressing before taking steps back during this skid. The 2022 Heisman Trophy winner was sacked nine times against New England and acknowledged he's been holding onto the ball too long at times.

“I took a few sacks that I shouldn’t have," Williams said. "I think that getting back to getting the ball out of my hands, being decisive is really important. That needs to start now.”

As for the decision to fire Waldron?

“I don’t get to choose the decisions, nor do I get to choose whether the decision is good, bad or indifferent," he said. "My job is to listen and from there go do my job.”

Notes: The Bears released veteran G Nate Davis even though they are banged up on the line, after signing him to a three-year, $30 million contract prior to last season. Davis reported back tightness on Sunday morning and was sent home prior to the game. He started 13 of the 16 games he played in for Chicago. He dealt with a lingering groin injury during training camp that popped up again after he started the first two games, and then fell on the depth chart.

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Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams looks down as he listens to reporters during an NFL football news conference, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, at Halas Hall in Lake Forest, Ill. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Chicago Bears new offensive coordinator Thomas Brown reacts as he listens to reporters during an NFL football news conference at Halas Hall in Lake Forest, Ill., Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Chicago Bears new offensive coordinator Thomas Brown smiles as he listens to reporters during an NFL football news conference at Halas Hall in Lake Forest, Ill., Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Chicago Bears head coach Matt Eberflus speaks during an NFL football news conference at Halas Hall in Lake Forest, Ill., Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Chicago Bears head coach Matt Eberflus listens to reporters during an NFL football news conference at Halas Hall in Lake Forest, Ill., Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump announced Friday that he'll nominate hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, an advocate for deficit reduction, to serve as his next treasury secretary.

Trump also said he would nominate Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget, a position Vought held during Trump's first presidency. Vought was closely involved with Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for Trump's second term that he tried to distance himself from during the campaign.

The announcements showed how Trump was fleshing out the financial side of his new administration. Although Bessent is closely aligned with Wall Street and could earn bipartisan support, Vought is known as a Republican hardliner.

Trump said Bessent would “help me usher in a new Golden Age for the United States," while Vought “knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State and end Weaponized Government.”

Bessent and Vought were only two of several personnel decisions that Trump disclosed Friday evening.

Trump said he chose Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, an Oregon Republican, as his labor secretary, and Scott Turner, a former football player who worked in Trump's first administration, as his housing secretary.

In addition, Trump rounded out his health team. He chose Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, a general practitioner and Fox News contributor, to be surgeon general; Dr. Dave Weldon, a former Republican congressman from Florida, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Dr. Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon, as head of the Food and Drug Administration. Trump previously said he would nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime spreader of conspiracy theories about vaccines, as health secretary.

Alex Wong was named as principal deputy national security adviser, while Sebastian Gorka will serve as senior director for counterterrorism. Wong worked on issues involving Asia during Trump’s first term, and Gorka is a conservative commentator who spent less than a year in Trump's White House.

Bessent, 62, is the founder of hedge fund Key Square Capital Management, after having worked on-and-off for Soros Fund Management since 1991. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be the nation’s first openly gay treasury secretary.

He told Bloomberg in August that attacking the U.S. national debt should be a priority, which includes slashing government programs and other spending.

“This election cycle is the last chance for the U.S. to grow our way out of this mountain of debt without becoming a sort of European-style socialist democracy,” he said then.

As of Nov. 8, the national debt stands at $35.94 trillion, with both the Trump and Biden administrations having added to it. Trump’s policies added $8.4 trillion to the national debt, while the Biden administration increased the national debt by $4.3 trillion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscal watchdog.

Even as he pushes to lower the national debt by stopping spending, Bessent has backed extending provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which Trump signed into law in his first year in office. Estimates from various economic analyses of the costs of the various tax cuts range between nearly $6 trillion and $10 trillion over 10 years. Nearly all of the law’s provisions are set to expire at the end of 2025.

Before becoming a Trump donor and adviser, Bessent donated to various Democratic causes in the early 2000s, notably Al Gore’s presidential run. He also worked for George Soros, a major supporter of Democrats. Bessent had an influential role in Soros’ London operations, including his famous 1992 bet against the pound, which generated huge profits on “Black Wednesday,” when the pound was de-linked from European currencies.

Bessent’s selection wasn’t surprising; he had been among the names floated for the treasury secretary role. At an October Detroit Economic Club event, Trump called Bessent “one of the top analysts on Wall Street.”

Bessent told Bloomberg in August that he views tariffs as a “one time price adjustment” and “not inflationary,” and tariffs imposed during a second Trump administration would be directed primarily at China. And he wrote in a Fox News op-ed this week that tariffs are “a useful tool for achieving the president’s foreign policy objectives," such as encouraging allies to spend more on defense or deterring military aggression.

Bessent has also floated ideas for how the Trump administration could put pressure on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, whose term expires in May 2026. Last month, Bessent suggested Trump could name a replacement chair early, and let that person function as a “shadow” chair, with the goal of essentially sidelining Powell.

But after the election, Bessent reportedly backed away from that plan. Powell, for his part, has said he wouldn’t step down if Trump asked him to do so, and added that Trump, as president, doesn’t have the authority to fire him.

Trump repeatedly attacked Powell during his first term as president for raising the Fed’s key rate in 2017 and 2018. During the 2024 campaign, he said that as president he should have a “say” in the central bank’s interest rate decisions. Presidents traditionally avoid commenting on the Fed’s policies.

Vought, 48, was the head of the Office of Management and Budget from mid-2020 to the end of Trump’s first term in 2021, having previously served as the acting director and deputy director. A graduate of Wheaton College and George Washington University Law School, he had a deep knowledge of government finances that has been paired with his own Christian faith.

After Trump’s initial term ended, Vought founded the Center for Renewing America, a think tank that describes its mission as renewing "a consensus of America as a nation under God.”

The Center for Renewing America released its own 2023 budget proposal entitled “A Commitment to End Work and Weaponized Government.” The proposal envisioned $11.3 trillion worth of spending reductions over 10 years and about $2 trillion in income tax cuts in order to bring the budget into surplus by 2032.

“The immediate threat facing the nation is the fact that the people no longer govern the country; instead, the government itself is increasingly weaponized against the people it is meant to serve,” Vought wrote in the introduction.

Vought’s proposed budget plan would cut spending on food aid through the Agriculture Department. There would be $3.3 trillion in spending reductions in the Health and Human Services Department in large part through how Medicaid and Medicare funds are distributed. It also contains about $642 billion in cuts to Affordable Care Act. The budgets for the Housing and Urban Development and Education departments would also be cut.

Vought’s budget ideas were independent of Trump, who has not entirely spelled out the details of his economic plans, other than to campaign on income tax cuts and tariff hikes.

Trump's choice for labor secretary, Chavez-DeRemer, 56, narrowly lost her reelection bid earlier this month. She received strong backing from union members in her district.

Chavez-DeRemer is one of a few House Republicans to endorse the “Protecting the Right to Organize” or PRO Act that would allow more workers to conduct organizing campaigns and would add penalties for companies that violate workers’ rights. The act would also weaken “right-to-work” laws that allow employees in more than half the states to avoid participating in or paying dues to unions that represent workers at their places of employment.

Trump said in a statement that she would help “ensure that the Labor Department can unite Americans of all backgrounds behind our Agenda for unprecedented National Success.”

FILE - Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., accompanied by Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., left, and House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., right, speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

FILE - President Donald Trump, left, listens as acting director of the Office of Management and Budget Russel Vought speaks during an event on "transparency in Federal guidance and enforcement" in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Oct. 9, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)