Good morning, Bears fans.

Nine days ago, for the first time mid-season, the Chicago Bears launched their head coach following another moment of falling short in the last few seconds of a game. Today, the Bears take the field for the first time under an interim head coach.

When Thomas Brown stepped in as the interim offensive coordinator, the offense stabilized from several shaky games and Caleb Williams turned in some of his best work against the three divisional opponents – and all three of those games being close and late losses are a reason why Matt Eberflus is no longer the head coach.

Now, the entire operation is under Brown’s watch, and his head coaching debut comes in against a very dinged-up San Francisco 49ers team that will be missing defensive end Nick Bosa, tackle Trent Williams, receiver Brandon Aiyuk (IR) and running backs Christian McCaffery and Elijah Mitchell (both IR).

The firing of Eberflus leads to several questions about the big picture of the Bears and life past this season, but for this week and this game, the focus will be on Brown’s ability to get the team together in a little over a week. With some of Williams’ best work coming in the fourth quarters of the last three games, how will Brown at the helm get the team to have better starts to games? Will the defense get it together? And can the Navy and Orange win a winnable game instead of finding another innovative way to drop a game?

To the future of the Bears’ franchise, starting this week. Bear Down, my friends.

Today’s WCG Sunday Livestream comes back after two weeks off to find everything in shambles, and there’s a ton to unpack here between Brown’s elevation of the offense, Eberflus’ firing, and what it all means for the Bears going forward over the next five weeks. Oh, right, and there’s a game today.

Of course, if you want to participate and get your comments out, here’s how you do it:

• Here, in this comment thread. We read them. We respond to them.
• Over on the Twitch site itself.
• Over on our social media accounts: Twitter (@WCGridiron, @SJS_illini, @SamHouseholder) and BlueSky (@sjsillini.bsky.social, @samhouseholder.bsky.social, @wiltfongjr.bsky.social)

We’ll be live at 9:30 AM CT, and there’s not a moment to waste. We’ll see you then.