At 3-5, what's left for the Bears to accomplish in 2019?

PHILADELPHIA — Amidst blank looks of frustration and a postgame silence that’s become routine, the Bears continued to reflexively preach togetherness and hope in the aftermath of their 22-14 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field.

“All it takes is that one win,” outside linebacker Leonard Floyd said. “Once we get that, we’ll be able to keep on winning.”

“A win would cure everything,” cornerback Prince Amukamara said.

But the Bears are 3-5. The Bears are who they are eight games into a year that was supposed to be about a Super Bowl run while celebrating 100 seasons of franchise history. It was supposed to be about “steady, incremental improvement.”

Instead, the Bears 100th season is destined to be defined as a disappointment thanks to a steady, significant decline.

And one win, though, will not solve everything — not when the Bears still have road games against the Rams, Packers and Vikings left, and are 1-3 at home this year with the Cowboys and Chiefs still coming to town. What has this Bears team done in 2019, besides a Week 4 win over the Minnesota Vikings that’s getting further and further in the rearview mirror, to inspire any confidence a turnaround can be sparked by one victory?

“Last year was last year,” Floyd said. “This is a whole new team.”

That answer was a response to a question about how frustrating it is for the league’s No. 1 defense in 2018 to fail to get off the field four times on third down on the Eagles’ game-sealing drive in the fourth quarter. But it applies to this entire group, from players to coaches: This is a new team. And it’s not close to as good as it was in 2018.

So where do the Bears go from here? If 2019 is all but lost, this team’s brain trust needs to figure out who from this team should be back for the franchise’s 101st season.

That’s an attitude the Bears likely do not want their players to take. Locker rooms can fracture when players start thinking about their jobs being on the line. Guys who get cut stand to lose millions of dollars; guys who get benched get branded with that label the rest of their careers.

But over the final eight games of 2019, the Bears need to figure out:

— If Mitch Trubisky is worthy of competing to win back his starting job next year, or if he needs to be outright benched in 2020,

— If Trubisky’s fifth-year option should be exercised,

— Who among the players with natural outs in their contracts should be back (Amukamara, Allen Robinson, Taylor Gabriel, Cordarrelle Patterson and Mike Davis all have dead cap figures in 2020 of $2 million or fewer, while Leonard Floyd’s fifth-year option is guaranteed for injury only),

— Which impending free agents should try to be retained (headlined by Chase Daniel, Danny Trevathan and Ha Ha Clinton-Dix),

— If Eddie Jackson and/or Tarik Cohen should be signed to contract extensions as they enter the final year of their rookie contracts,

— If there need to be any coaching changes on Matt Nagy’s staff,

— And where the glaring weaknesses are on this roster that need to be addressed in free agency and the draft.

The Bears are not going to fire Nagy or general manager Ryan Pace one year after they won coach and executive of the year, respectively. But failing to meet expectations begets difficult discussions, which lead to change. And change is not always good for everyone in a locker room.

For now, though, the Bears will try to pick up the pieces from their fourth consecutive loss and try not to let the weekly stings of these defeats turn into numbness.  

“Just keep fighting,” Robinson said. “We don’t have quitters in this locker room.”