Everybody has a breaking point. Jaylon Johnson has been with the Chicago Bears since 2020. In that time, the cornerback has never experienced a winning season. He, like many, felt this season was the perfect opportunity to get over the hump. The roster was flush with talent. They had a manageable early schedule. If they could finally start finishing games, this was a playoff team. Things started well enough at 4-2 going into the bye week. Then the wheels game off. Chicago suffered six straight losses, capped by the horrific debacle in Detroit, where Matt Eberflus again cost his team a chance to win with bad situational awareness.
It was a catastrophe in every sense of the word. There were 30 seconds left. Chicago was only about five or six yards from reasonable field goal range to force overtime. Eberflus had a timeout after Caleb Williams took a sack on second down. However, he refused to use it, forcing the quarterback to wait for the play call. By the time everything was finally set, there were only 13 seconds left. The Bears ran one play. It fell incomplete. Game over. Eberflus tried to keep things calm in the post-game locker room, but according to Adam Jahns and Dianna Russini of The Athletic, the players weren’t having it.
Nobody made that more apparent than Johnson.
Another crushing, confounding loss for the Chicago Bears meant another postgame speech about “sticking together” from head coach Matt Eberflus in front of a frustrated, crowded locker room at Ford Field in Detroit.
This time, though, team captain Jaylon Johnson wasn’t having it.
Not after another winnable game slipped away — a 23-20 loss to the Lions on Thanksgiving.
Not after another day of highly questionable coaching decisions.
This postgame message required a different tone, a different vibe, and probably a different voice. Like a lot of Bears players, Johnson had had enough. Sick of finding new ways to give games away, they wanted accountability and answers.
“Jaylon went crazy,” one Bears player said. “He was very emotional and pissed but rightfully so. He’s been here longer than most.”
Said another player: “He was going off more so at (Eberflus).”
Jaylon Johnson had been slowly boiling for weeks.
Just four days ago, the cornerback said on the radio that he felt this team was more than talented enough to be a winner. They had the right leaders and the right athletes. It was a glaring insinuation that the coaches were the problem, specifically the one at the top. His explosion on Eberflus following the loss in Detroit proves this. Apparently, it got so bad that the head coach was forced to leave the locker room so the guys could cool down. This confrontation was a big part of why management and ownership decided it was time to fire Eberflus.
Keeping the head coach any longer would risk the entire locker room fracturing beyond repair. The McCaskeys had never fired a head coach midseason, but they were convinced it was time. Eberflus had lost the players weeks ago. This was just the final straw. Jaylon Johnson was merely the one who lit the fuse. It is hard to blame the cornerback. He has given his absolute best for five seasons with nothing to show for it. He’s 25 years old. There are only so many chances you get at winning a championship in the NFL. Wasting them on useless head coaches is not something he can tolerate anymore.
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I have to say it’s pretty nice to hear the Chicago Bears players have some fire still. Most teams would be mailing it in playing half speed and not caring about the outcome of games. I believe Thomas Brown will have this team coming out hot next week. He seems like the type of coach to literally leave it all on the field. Hopefully we have some solid, fun games ahead of us to close out the season. Atleast the players are all about winning, even if their HC wasn’t.
Two things about the botched Eberflus Press Conf. This thing had to be run up to Virginia even after the discussion with George the CEO. That took several hours. So at the time of his Presser it really was unknown if Flus would stay, even Poles.
And as for Flus and his Presser. He again showed a total lack of situational awareness. He had to know something was going on. He could have called Poles before the Presser, or just delayed it himself. There was nothing pressing to talk about after another loss.
Hey Melhus, STFU normie.
@TGena I don’t disagree with you about Ryan Poles track record or value. You already know how I feel about coaching choices being his weakest area. However, I am both in favor of giving unknown, untested people a chance (albeit with short leashes), and know that great things can be accomplished by the “boots-on-the-ground people despite the lack of competency, of management. Tesla is a good example of a company doing well despite delusional ownership – because the people on the ground carry him. Some leadership can learn, others delude themselves. Kansas City learned, Green Bay learned, Dallas went in… Read more »
@TWTY: Your opinions on football are acceptable here, even if they are expressed in your ‘unique’ way. However, the racism has no place here. We don’t know what goes on in the locker room, and it seems that players like Kmet and Sanborn are well regarded. Blaming the players disappointment/anger on Flus’s skin color is unacceptable. Flus made plenty of errors, and if Thomas Brown makes the same mistakes, the players and administration should turn on him the same way. I agree that the Bears as a whole bungled the firing, having Flus do a presser just before he was… Read more »