The Chicago Bears could enter into some unprecedented waters in the coming days if the team suffers another brutal loss to the Washington Commanders on Thursday.

The Bears have never fired a head coach midseason in francise history (17 total different head coaches), but many are calling for that to change in 2023.

Head coach Matt Eberflus has currently lead the Bears to a 14 game losing streak, a franchise worst, and an 0-4 start to the season. Chicago has flat out been embarrassed every week since Week 8, 2022.

While it's unconventional for the Bears to cut ties with a head coach in the middle of a season, it's become increasingly common for other teams around the NFL. It could be even more common after a Thursday night game, with a longer period of time for transition and adjustment to take place before the next game.

Since 2015, 19 head coaches have been released from their duties in the middle of the season. Of those 19 coaches fired, 18 were replaced by in-house coaches for the remainder of the season (only 2 became the full time head coach the following season, Mike Mularkey in Tennessee and Doug Marrone in Jacksonville).

The only exception of not hiring a current member of the coaching staff as the team's interim head coach since 2015 was the Indianapolis Colts infamously hiring former NFL center and ESPN analyst Jeff Saturday on November 7, 2022 after firing Frank Reich.

The Colts finished the season 1-8 under Saturday as the interim head coach and Saturday has since returned to the ESPN desk on "Get Up."

If the Bears decide to part ways with Eberflus, the clear answer to find his replacement for the remainder of the 2023 season has to come from the existing coaching staff. But, who would even be a worthy candidate to replace him?

More often than not, teams go with either the offensive coordinator or defensive coordinator to finish out the season. The Bears have already moved away from defensive coordinator Alan Williams, after he resigned earlier this season. Offensive coordinator Luke Getsy doesn't seem like the answer, and honestly, will more than likely be packing his bags with Eberflus if he were to be fired.

Special teams coordinator Richard Hightower seems like the ideal top candidate to potentially take over during the remainder of the 2023 season if Eberflus is given the axe. Hightower is viewed as a rising star on the Bears coaching staff and deserves the opportunity to lead the team, if only for a few weeks.

“[Hightower's] a great communicator, he’s a great teacher, and the one thing that the owners and the people that hire him don’t see, they don’t see him in the meeting room, and that’s where he’s special,” Eberflus told The Athletic back in January.“I mean, he lights the room up.”

Hightower has been an NFL assistant since 2006 and has served as an assistant defensive backs coach, offensive quality control coach, and most notably a special teams coordinator. He's the only one on the coaching staff with real experience in all three phases of the game, and has worked for 5 total teams in his coaching career.

Hightower has already commanded the media room miles better than both Eberflus and Getsy so far this season. The players seem to enjoy playing for him on special teams and this is how he addressed the entire team on Tuesday following their Week 4 loss.

"Obviously, I'm excited for our football team to respond on a national stage and showcase our team on primetime," Hightower said. "So excited about the opportunity to get going there and the guys are fired up about it as well. Obviously, they didn't like how the game ended last week. None of us did. And they're passionate and they're focused and they're ready to fight. So I love the look in their eyes this morning."

That's the kind of energy you want to see from your team's leader after a loss. It's the same energy we also saw from another recent special teams coordinator turned interim head coach in Rich Bisaccia with the Las Vegas Raiders. After replacing Jon Gruden on October 11, 2021, Bisaccia led the Raiders to a 7-5 record during the remainder of the season.

Who's to say Hightower couldn't produce a similar result if he's actually able to rally the locker room around him during the rest of the season?

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