The Bears can’t have 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan, so they have to go find an elite offensive play-caller bound to them by the weight of a head-coaching contract of their own.
That much was clear by the end of the Bears’ 38-13 shellacking Sunday at the hands of the 49ers in Santa Clara, California, where their brass saw firsthand the effect of Shanahan being perfect in an imperfect situation.
As a play-caller, he put on an absolute clinic.
The 49ers were missing future Hall of Fame left tackle Trent Williams because of injury and, by the middle of the first quarter, were down to their third-string left guard. Running back Christian McCaffrey, the reigning Offensive Player of the Year and another future Hall of Fame candidate, was out, too. So was his backup. And, by the middle of the fourth quarter, his backup’s backup. The leading rusher on the 49ers’ active roster entering the game was quarterback Brock Purdy.
Shanahan had plenty of reasons he could have struggled. What he did instead was call one of the best halves of football the Bears have seen in years. The 49ers averaged 8.6 yards per play in the first half. They had touchdown drives of 70, 64 and 71 yards and marched 69 yards for a field goal. They led 24-0 at halftime.
Purdy, who had 94 passing yards against the Bills in the snow the week before, had completions of 33, 32, 32, 27, 23, 23 and 20 yards in the first half against the Bears.
When the Bears didn’t blitz, Purdy posted a perfect 158.3 passer rating. When they did, it was a mere 112.5.
‘‘We gave up way too many explosives, especially early in the game,’’ interim coach Thomas Brown said Monday. ‘‘That obviously gives their play-caller, Kyle Shanahan, an opportunity to dictate the flow of the game and call what he wants to call.’’
Shanahan used misdirection and play-action to suck in the Bears’ linebackers, then threw over the top of them. He called screens at the best moments against Bears coordinator Eric Washington, who was calling a regular-season defense for the first time in six years.
On the fourth play of the game, Purdy threw a screen to tight end George Kittle against a nickel blitz from cornerback Kyler Gordon. When Kittle caught the ball, he had two blockers in front of him with only one Bears defender — linebacker T.J. Edwards — outside the left hash marks. Kittle rumbled for 33 yards.
Shanahan joked that he still has scar tissue from when former Seahawks linebacker K.J. Wright would stare at Kittle at the start of a screen and wallop him when he caught the ball. He had no reason to fear that Sunday. Instead, he said he just gave Kittle ‘‘some crap for being tackled inside the 5 — twice.’’
In the second quarter, the Bears dropped defensive tackle Byron Cowart into coverage — and right into the teeth of a middle screen to Kittle. Two blockers hit Cowart and kept running, and Kittle gained 23 yards. He finished with 151 receiving yards, the most in history by a tight end against the Bears.
The 49ers gave the Bears a few new looks — they ran a read-option run for the first time this season, Shanahan said — but otherwise fooled them on the margins.
It’s rare that players single out opposing play-callers by name.
‘‘Kyle Shanahan is one of the best play-callers in the league,’’ Bears defensive lineman DeMarcus Walker said afterward. ‘‘I feel like him knowing our strengths, he definitely changed a lot of things around. The defense would have to key their guys and just react instead of having a lot of things out in your face. I think he did a great job calling the game.’’
Cornerback Jaylon Johnson praised Packers head coach and play-caller Matt LaFleur last month. When asked what he did to make the Packers’ offense work, Johnson said, ‘‘Really, everything.’’ He then made a list.
‘‘Making things look the same and then mirroring different routes and different concepts of it,’’ he said at the time. ‘‘That and the timing of certain calls. When you pressure, it seems like he knows to run screen passes and things like that. He’s really smart in the timing.’’
The Bears need someone such as Shanahan or LaFleur, and the only way to guarantee a play-caller stays is to name him head coach. It won’t be Shanahan — he and 49ers general manager John Lynch shot down any rumor of his departure — so the Bears must find their own Shanahan.
It won’t be easy. For every team that thinks it has found an elite offensive mind to be its head coach — the Bears’ next opponent, the Vikings, might have in Kevin O’Connell — there are 10 teams that have whiffed. Matt Nagy was supposed to fit the bill. So was Marc Trestman.
Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson is as close to Shanahan as any candidate this offseason. Like Shanahan eight years ago, however, he might be a play-caller on a Super Bowl participant who doesn’t accept a head-coaching job until the day after the game.
Perhaps Commanders coordinator Kliff Kingsbury makes sense, too, with the added bonus of having head-coaching experience. The Texans’ Bobby Slowik, who mentored C.J. Stroud, is another young offensive play-caller on the rise.
Brown might be on the Bears’ list, too, but it would take an act of faith after his debut went about as disastrously as possible.
The Bears might look to veteran coaches who don’t call plays and try to build their team around more amorphous claims of culture. But wouldn’t you rather pick someone with the perfect play-call on third-and-seven?
Shanahan, a two-time NFC champion, is a rare talent. Finding another won’t be easy. But the Bears can’t land the next Shanahan unless they try.
