The worst part of the Chicago Bears’ absolute stupidity in their Thanksgiving loss might be that Matt Eberflus later said he liked what they did.
He told fans that what everyone saw at the end of the Bears’ terrifying final 30 seconds of their 23-20 loss to the Detroit Lions wasn’t actually that bad. Whatever the situation, it’s going to be a bad outcome. And so it happened, and Eberflus was fired on Friday.
In case you missed it over the holidays, the Bears led 23-20 in the final moments. Caleb Williams was sacked with 30 seconds left in the game. And the clock kept ticking. The Bears took a timeout but did not call it. Williams looked like a confused rookie. Everflus did not throw him a life preserver. The clock ticked down to six seconds and when the ball was finally snapped, Williams’ incomplete downfield pass was the final play of the game.
“I like what we did there,” Eberflus said as part of his postgame explanation.
The Bears have never fired a coach during a season and have made that fact known multiple times. They had to break that strange tradition for Everflus, but it wasn’t just the Thanksgiving fiasco that caused it.
Matt Eberflus hurt the Bears in a close game.
Part of a coach’s job is what to say after a loss. It’s not a big part of the job, but it’s also not being able to tell a loyal fan base that their mistakes were actually okay at all.
When the Washington Commanders beat the Bears on a Hail Mary, the Bears played all the way back and gave Jayden Daniels a shot into the end zone, gaining an easy 13 yards on the penultimate play. Everflus said he was. I don’t care about the gain. Meanwhile, Commanders coach Dan Quinn said the Commanders’ Hail Mary would not have been possible without it.
In the loss to the Green Bay Packers, his second-to-last field goal was blocked. Coach Eberflus said his team “felt good” by not trying to get the ball close to kicker Cairo Santos, but Packers players then missed Santos’ long, low trajectory. said he knew.
Then came the situation where the game ended against the Lions. If you say you’ve never seen anything like it before, you’re right. According to OptaSTATS, over the past 30 NFL seasons, there have been 1,501 times in which a team lost by three points or less and played within 30 points on the final drive without attempting a field goal as time expired. There was only one team. Or use timeouts all together. That was the Bears on Thursday.
According to Josh Dubow of the Associated Press, Eberflus had the worst record among 221 coaches in NFL history, with at least 20 games decided by seven points or less. Eberflus had 5 wins and 17 losses in a close game. You can’t blame it on bad luck either.
The Bears are by no means a clean organization either. They had Eberflus address the media on Friday and fired him hours later. It’s a really unprofessional look.
The entire franchise needs to be cleansed. Maybe it started on Friday.
How can the Bears change things?
The Bears haven’t won a Super Bowl since the 1985 season. They didn’t have a 4,000-yard passer. They haven’t won in the playoffs since January 2011.
And they’ve never had a quarterback prospect like Caleb Williams.
When the Bears fired their coach midway through the season, it was a sign that they knew clinging to old principles was holding them back. Chicago is in many ways stuck in the past. The Bears need to modernize their operations to get the most out of Williams. They’ve already wasted a season with him, one season too long since Eberflus, a defensive-minded head coach, finished last season strong.
Amidst all the fuss over Eberflus’ late-game blunder, Williams played very well in the second half against Detroit and nearly led a come-from-behind victory. He went through some ups and downs as a rookie, and a lot of that can be attributed to coaching. The Bears’ offense has looked better since firing offensive coordinator Shane Waldron three weeks ago. Perhaps it will be even better without Eberflus. The Bears as a whole will have to be more organized at the end of games going forward.
The Bears have tried everything when it comes to hiring a head coach, so it’s anyone’s guess what direction they’ll go in this time. But it must be done with Williams’ development in mind. They can’t afford to kill a great prospect like Williams.
Whatever the Bears do, they can first look back at their long history. Then do the opposite.
