The Chicago Bears fired Matt Eberflus. Nobody was surprised. The entire country watched what happened in Detroit on Thanksgiving. His bungling of the game’s final minute has already reached legendary status. Coaches around the league are using it as teaching tape on what not to do. He’s even a punchline during college football broadcasts. Firing him was the only course of action for the franchise. Some would argue it was long overdue. More than a few people felt he should’ve been gone after last season.
Either way, what’s done is done. The Bears can finally move on, right? Well, it may not be that simple. According to Adam Hoge of CHGO, the organization might be in an awkward spot because of the way they handled Eberflus’ firing. The former coach held his 9:00 a.m. presser the day after the game as if everything was normal. He expressed confidence he’d be ready to go for San Francisco next weekend. Two hours later, the news dropped that he was out. People were shocked the Bears would do that, wondering why they didn’t cancel or reschedule the presser.
Hoge revealed on the Hoge & Jahns podcast that several people around the NFL were appalled by it, including potential coaching candidates.
The Chicago Bears will need a good explanation for this.
According to the available information, GM Ryan Poles and team president Kevin Warren met with George McCaskey around 7:30 a.m. last Friday. The meeting lasted a few hours as they weighed their options. No decision on Eberflus had been made when the presser was set to begin. The Bears didn’t want to cancel or reschedule it because it would send the signal something might be happening when they hadn’t yet decided. So, they let things continue as planned until they were sure what came next.
Subscribe to the BFR Youtube channel and ride shotgun with Dave and Ficky as they break down Bears football like nobody else.
The presser was long over by the time they concluded that Eberflus had to go. It was a rough PR look, but was a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. Some will argue they should’ve had the conversation right after the game, but it was Thanksgiving. The Chicago Bears weren’t going to fire the coach on a holiday. Besides, McCaskey wasn’t in Detroit. All of it came through an unfortunate set of circumstances. The good news is the Bears have over a month to prepare their explanation for potential coaching candidates once interviews begin in January.
Let me once again say that if the goal is 300-yard games from QB1, then Poles needs to immediately cut all defensive players and replace them with random guys off the street, or perhaps a contingent of fans who simp for Caleb Williams in the comments section of the Sports Mockery website.
If the CHI D couldn’t keep any opponent from hanging 70 on it, then Caleb would throw for 6,000 yards every season, CHI would be 0-17, and Poles would be GM for life. That’s what winning looks like. Right @BearCub30?
@BearCub30 OK, here is the comparison: Through his first 12 games started last year, Fields put up more yards (3,044) and more touchdowns (20) than Caleb has this year (2,990 yards and 14 TDs). Last week, Caleb began to run ahead of Fields in touchdown-to-turnover ratio. And that’s legitimately great! Fields lost too many fumbles and Caleb has protected the ball better. I have no problem writing that because that’s what the data says. Different people have different opinions as to what that particular metric actually means — you can avoid all turnovers by just spiking the ball into the… Read more »
The press conference sure seemed like it was designed to keep Brown for the rest of the five game upcoming season and avoid yet another Poles decision. Kevin Warren wins as long as Poles is in place.
Poles may in fact be safe for this five game upcoming season but not next. In five or six weeks from now, if Poles is no longer part of the Bears organization, eleven straight losses would leave it hard to support a GM with that kind of losing streak.
@BearCub30 I’m not sure how to explain stats to you but Caleb already has 141 more attempts than Fields had as a rookie in just as many games and every game he’s gone over 300yds has also been a game where he had more attempts than Fields has ever had in a single game his entire career. I don’t think the stats mean what you think they mean. More passes = more yards… He’s also had 15 more sacks than Fields in the same number of games with a much better group of receivers and a slightly better offensive line… Read more »
@BearCub30 Oh yeah, there is all kinds of crap to sort out, including making sure they have the interim guy locked down. There’s also so many different things that must be handled each week, many by the head coach either directly or by someone he is closely supervising, that it’s probably not as easy to can the head coach mid-season as people watching from their couches seem to think it is. I mean Eberflus sucked at many aspects of his job, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t completing the required tasks. Now somebody needs to replace him on all of… Read more »