It was too much to expect the Chicago Bears to beat the Detroit Lions. One team is the hottest in the NFL. The other has suffered a series of devastating defeats over the past two months. In truth, the Bears’ lopsided loss in Detroit was predictable for one reason and one reason only: the gulf between the head coaches. It has become abundantly clear over the past three years that Dan Campbell is a master of motivation and staff-building for the Lions. He’s assembled two outstanding assistants, Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn. Matt Eberflus has watched three coordinators leave because they were terrible.
More than anything else, it was once again a sign that the Bears head coach had no concept of situational awareness. He once again needlessly burned timeouts on pointless challenges. The defense couldn’t get off the field on third down in the first half. Offensively, they couldn’t run the ball to save their lives, leaving Caleb Williams in a difficult spot once again.
Best of all? More dumb mistakes cost them a chance at an epic comeback, including the inexplicable refusal to spend his final timeout to preserve a game-tying field goal. It’s a familiar story at this point. The inferiority was crystal clear. What else do the Bears need to see at this point? Eberflus doesn’t need or deserve any further games for evaluation.
Matt Eberflus will go down as one of the worst in Bears history.
People will use the excuse of the team instigating a rebuild during his first year in Chicago, prompting him to go 3-14 that first season. Here’s the thing. John Fox won five games despite Ryan Pace doing the same thing in 2015. Eberflus has been handed a much better roster than Fox had, particularly at quarterback with Justin Fields and now Caleb Williams. For him to have the longest losing streak in Bears history (14 games) and be two more away from the second-longest (8 games) tells you how overmatched he is for this job.
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The McCaskeys won’t fire him midseason. They have never done that since taking ownership of the franchise in 1983. If Marc Trestman didn’t get the boot after the dumpster fire of 2014, Matt Eberflus won’t either. This means fans must endure five more games of this nonsense. Thomas Brown remains a candidate for the job despite a rough first half. He pulled things together in the second, but it was too late. Eberflus couldn’t get a stop from his defense when needed, which should kill any remaining arguments for keeping him.
I’m not convinced this is on Flus. The bears were at the line with 14-15 secends left. If they snapped the ball right away there probably would have been just enough time to run a play and get the timeout called. It would have been close but I assume that is what Eberflus was trying to do.
@Arnie Whether your view of the context of the last two minutes or one minute of the game is what anyone thinks, the fact is: the Bears were not prepared. That is overall coaching. I could call out Thomas Brown too, but his three week focus has been on JUST getting players organized to run plays. Position coaches should have been coaching Kmet not to get penalized for pick plays from the FIRST DAY of training camp. Setting, controlling line motion, rules, situations, what to do with 30 seconds. ALL of that is coaching, both positions, sides and whole-of-team. Who… Read more »
There is no way Eberflus stays after this disaster! 5 more games, my ass! He is gone! They may have never done that, even with Trestman. But Trestman didn’t make them a national laughing stock like Eberflus just did. One thing nobody wants to be is ridiculed by not only local media, but national media, coaches, ex players, current players, etc etc.
This has to be the nail in the coffin. I couldn’t believe what I was watching for the last 30 seconds. I was speechless. It’s hard to believe an NFL head coach is so poor at clock management. Bears leadership needs to send a message today, or they look weak.
I disagree that the 2 min playcalling was bad. The game came down to a couple of plays basically that didn’t work, but should have. The first was the missed crossing route to DJ that likely ended the game if completed, but Caleb missed what for him, should be an easy throw. You had the two offensive PI calls on Kmet as a result of getting sloppy with technique he knows that reversed critical gains and put them behind the chains. And the last was the sack that effectively ended the game. From what I heard in post game interviews,… Read more »