If one were to look at the Washington loss on Sunday in a vacuum, it wasn’t enough to get a head coach fired. Yes, Matt Eberflus made some mistakes late that led to the Chicago Bears losing. However, his team also fought back from a 12-0 deficit to retake the lead 15-12. The problem is this isn’t an isolated incident. Fumbling leads in the final minutes has become an alarming trend for Eberflus dating back to last year. Look at the Denver, Detroit, and Cleveland games for a reminder. Coming up short in tight games is not a reputation you want your head coach to have.
That could be why the Bears brass have quietly started researching potential replacements. A source informed SM of this development, with both team president Kevin Warren and GM Ryan Poles involved. Mind you, they have not made the decision to fire Eberflus. He managed to steady the ship last year, and they are hopeful he can again. That said, it is hard to ignore the cracks in the foundation. They’ve questioned the coaching staff’s ability to keep guys focused on details and avoiding sloppy mistakes. Eberflus has work to do if he is going to save his job.
The Chicago Bears aim to have a list of options ready if needed.
That is what the early research is about. Poles and Warren don’t want to get caught unprepared if Eberflus can’t get the team where it should be. Remember, the head coach has one year left on his contract. The Bears will not keep him around as a lame duck. That means either an extension or a change. At 4-3, nobody is hitting the panic button yet. Wins against Arizona and New England over the next two weeks should calm things down before the toughest stretch of the schedule.
Still, Eberflus can’t hide from the facts. He is 14-27 as a head coach, including 3-17 on the road and 1-13 against teams with winning records. His offenses have failed to take any discernable leap in quality despite massive talent additions and a staff change over the past two years. The Chicago Bears won’t fire him midseason regardless of what happens, but preparations are underway to act quickly in the event a change happens.
Three names mentioned that are atop their list, at least for the moment, are said to be Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, and Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik.
Like Warren knows anything about football. He was gifted the best site possible to build a mega football/ entertainment complex and he is still fooling around with the downtown garbage. Like he would know a good coach if he was given one. NOT. He should focus on his job. Building a state of the art football stadium and entertainment complex at AH. Otherwise fire him and hire someone that can.
Couple of things why is your post edited? Did you research and discover something more, which is nonsense that you can throw at me? Another thing you didn’t tell me .. was anything that I don’t already know. Warren was hired after Poles. And Warren has nothing to do with Poles. and he’s like the spy in the game Stratego (his function is entirely different than everybody else‘s) as I stated he’s only there to get the stadium built. So what was ur point.? You may have fooled a bunch of other people out here, but you didn’t fool me.… Read more »
@Hehateme30 — That’s some great inside information. You must be back to dating Ms. Virginia, again — huh? My expectation would have been for Chicago Bears Team President/CEO, Kevin Warren to follow the course set by the Detroit Lions and their executive “non-football man.” The Lions President and CEO, Rod Wood (was a former banking executive with Wilmington Trust Company and a self-described “businessman”). Wood’s primary purpose is described on detroitlions.com: “…Following organizational changes at the end of the 2020 season, Wood and (Principal Owner and Chair) Mrs. (Sheila Ford) Hamp set out to establish a new leadership vision for… Read more »
Gena, This shows how little you know. about Kevin Warren as a president. His job is similar to Ted Phillips. Phillips at the time handled all the contracts. Poles dept now handles contracts. Warren is basically responsible for overseeing everything, but the win loss record or who gets drafted or anything like that does not pertain to him, his main function is to get the stadium built and be an overseer that is all.A liason to the McCaskeys. If the stadium doesn’t get built in a timely manner or it’s flawed or something is unacceptable, that will be how he… Read more »
A lot of crazies on here that actually think Harbaugh would ever have had a chance to come back and be a coach/GM for the Bears. First of all, knowing how the Bears operate it’s all about money. The Bears have a long-standing history of severely underpaying their coaches, usually their GM’s and I don’t know how Ted Phillips was paid for the 25–30 years that he was here, but I have a friend who works for the city, he has a bunch of friends who are connected with the Bears and I’m hearing that Kevin Warren is paid, basically… Read more »