Dan Wiederer: An open letter to new Bears coach Matt Eberflus. Welcome! Now understand the colossal challenge you just accepted.

CHICAGO — Dear Coach Eberflus,

Congratulations on your new gig. And welcome to Chicago. What an amazing opportunity! You’re going to love it here. (For a little while anyway.)

This is your time now, your chance to take the steering wheel of a franchise that has a rich history in a football-crazed city with a fan base that’s both intensely passionate and overwhelmingly loyal. (To be honest, the unwavering devotion is almost warped, given these fans’ tortured existence over the past 30 years.)

Still, stop just for a minute. Smell the roses. Take it all in.

Envision what this experience might become if you can put together a run of sustained success. Talk to Bears alumni who have been on the joyride at its peaks. Listen to their tales of how this city comes alive and radiates with electricity when its favorite football team is winning regularly.

Find the Halas Hall video vaults and comb through the “Hall of Fame” drawer, soaking in footage of Walter Payton and Dick Butkus, Gale Sayers