It hasn’t been a good week for Matt Eberflus. The former Chicago Bears head coach thought he’d been able to move on from losing his job without consequences. He even got new employment as the defensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys. Well, it seems some people at Halas Hall weren’t willing to let him dip without some criticism. GM Ryan Poles got the ball rolling yesterday when he openly stated new head coach Ben Johnson is a massive upgrade in terms of football intelligence. Not a ringing endorsement of the man he replaced.
However, Bears players weren’t going to let him have all the fun. The annual NFL Players Association survey came out this week, offering report cards for every team. They cover all sorts of topics like weight room, air travel, nutrition, and so on. Head coach is also included. Let’s just say Eberflus didn’t get a ringing endorsement. He was ranked dead last in the league at 32nd. Why? Two key reasons. Players felt he didn’t listen to their feedback and had a poor grasp on the team schedule.
“The players’ most frequent complaint was with their former head coach Matt Eberflus. The players felt like he lacked a willingness to listen to the players and the players’ leadership council, and he mismanaged the weekly team schedule. After the team completed the survey, the Bears terminated Eberflus and hired Ben Johnson as their new head coach.”
Matt Eberflus couldn’t escape his reputation.
Nobody knew it at the time, but these were the same issues that haunted him in Indianapolis as defensive coordinator. Some players felt he wouldn’t listen to them when they raised concerns on various topics. He had a bad tendency to dodge responsibility. That, among other things, was probably why he was about to get fired in 2022. How the Bears thought Matt Eberflus deserved to be a head coach is beyond mind-numbing. It is another painful reminder of how ill-informed the organization was about its candidates. That is the price you pay for employing former GMs who’d been out of the league for over a decade to run your search. Mercifully, it appears they have corrected those issues, leading to Johnson. Fans can finally act like they have an adult in charge for once.
Had to end my last comment early because a supervisor came to ask me a question: with that being said, it’s refreshing as it finally feels The Bears are serious about making the correct decisions for this team’s future.
@Sam – exactly. We may be thrilled that Ben Johnson is here as head coach now, but we can’t forget that Ryan Poles and his front office were a big part of everything that happened here the last three years. But let them keep downvoting. It just proves some of us actually have standards and expectations for our GM and front office. And we aren’t the buying the whitewashing going on lately. For myself, I’ll start believing in Poles once he exceeds .500 as a GM. Note – that’s not a GOOD record as a GM, it’s mediocre. But it’s… Read more »
I’m loving where things are finally headed. There is definitely light at the end of the tunnel. With that being said I can’t help to look back at all of the years gone to waste being a fan of this organization and how frustrating it is. So many times we could tell this organization that a specific move or coaching hire was the wrong decision. This happened so much that we would go into each year with artificial optimism ONLY because you can’t start the year being in last place as everyone is an even 0-0 record. Nobody really thought… Read more »
@ Sam, well stated. I’ve got some bad news for the players of this “leadership council” that were upset with Fluss. My coach Ben won’t listen to them either because they don’t decide who runs the team or how. Johnson already said it as plainly as could be stated (because he’s an adult that knows how to express his thought). Paraphrasing his opening presser, he said “after we win, the players will have an established culture to protect and adhere to”. In other words, the coaches will establish the culture. Work hard so that you win. When we win, only… Read more »
What is the point of polls like this? Everyone that needs to know, knows how the players feel about ex coaches. I bet some of the defensive players missed his play calling given what they turned into after he left.