Chicago's Eberflus nightmare is finally over

Rejoice, Bears fans! Matt Eberflus is no longer the head coach of your football team, and Friday’s firing has been a long time coming.

Following a Week 7 bye, the Bears were 4-2. Granted, those wins came over lowly Tennessee, Carolina, Jacksonville and a then-extremely-injured Rams team, but nonetheless, it was Chicago’s best start to a season since it last made the playoffs in 2020.

Then came the six-game losing streak. It started with a poor offensive showing in Washington that was rescued by a heroic fourth quarter by franchise quarterback Caleb Williams, only to result in a loss after Jayden Daniels’ Hail Mary deflected off the hand of Bears corner Tyrique Stevenson and into the waiting arms of Noah Brown.

The Bears proceeded to drop their next two games to the Cardinals and Patriots by a combined score of 48-12. Eberflus appeared to have lost his locker room, but rather than getting the boot himself, Chicago’s leader instead fired offensive coordinator Shane Waldron less than 10 months after bringing him in. Waldron was the eighth Bears coach fired under Eberflus.

Passing game coordinator Thomas Brown’s elevation to offensive coordinator immediately provided a jolt to the offense and Williams’ play, but the Bears still continued to suffer devastating losses. In a one-point game against the Packers, Eberflus chose to wind the clock down before attempting a field goal instead of running more plays to try to move closer and make the kick easier. The subsequent field goal was blocked and Chicago lost, 20-19. Packers players cited a vulnerability that they spotted on film as an opportunity to make the play.

A week later, Williams was heroic again, rallying the Bears from a 14-point deficit and leading the team on a game-tying drive where the kick was good as time expired. Chicago got the ball first in overtime but failed to earn a first down. Minnesota went right down the field and walked the Bears off on a field goal to clinch a fifth consecutive loss.

Tensions were already high, but Thursday’s Thanksgiving Day loss to Detroit was the icing on top of the cake. The Lions had 279 yards of offense before Chicago even made a first down, but once again, the Bears crawled themselves back into the game and had an opportunity to tie or take the lead on one final drive. Instead, with a timeout in Eberflus’ pocket, this happened:

It felt like time was happening in slow motion. Williams was sacked behind the field goal target line on a poorly executed QB draw with 32 seconds remaining. Williams hurries his team to the line, but doesn’t receive the play from his coaches until there are just 13 seconds on the clock. Realizing he doesn’t have enough time for the play called, he calls an audible to try to go for the win, but throws a deep pass over Rome Odunze’s head as time expires. The whole time, Eberflus chooses not to use his final timeout.

There are two big takeaways from this. First, Williams has to have better awareness of the situation. He can’t help that his coaches took so long to give him the play, but he has to remember that the Bears did have a timeout, so it would be okay to have a receiver tackled between the numbers. Deciding to change the play, which already cost precious time, then throw it deep, was poor management.

However, the other 75% of the blame goes to none other than Eberflus. As the head coach, it is a massive part of his job to properly manage the clock and be the key decision-maker in terms of timeouts and challenges (of which he was 0-for-5 in 2024). It’s also Eberflus’ job to have control over his football team and put them in the best situation to win. It was right for him to not initially call the timeout, as a quick play call and then a timeout could’ve still set them up for a field goal. However, as soon as he recognized that his rookie quarterback was flustered and struggling to get the snap off, it was Eberflus’ responsibility to stop the clock, get his team to take a deep breath and strategize a better plan for his team. The postgame quotes from the Bears players said it all:

Keenan Allen: “I feel like we did enough as players to win the game.”

DJ Moore: “I don’t know why we didn’t take a timeout.”

And on the other hand…

Matt Eberflus: “I think we handled it the right way.”

In the Bears’ 105-year existence, they had never fired a head coach in season. For whatever reason, a franchise that has been dysfunctional for a decade and a half had refused to break its unwritten rule, even as its head coach damaged his No. 1 overall pick’s confidence and the chemistry in the locker room.

Good culture is not established by waiting to fire bad coaches until the season ends. You get a good culture by making the correct decisions that show that you want to win. When the players put their bodies on the line each week, battling for four quarters only to have their efforts undermined by a coach who fails to prepare for the game’s most important situations, that doesn’t create an environment in which the players feel like they are respected and their management is trying to win football games. What free agents would want to come to play for an organization like Chicago, which has proven time and time again that it will not prioritize winning?

General Manager Ryan Poles and President Kevin Warren made the right decision to fire Eberflus on Friday morning — albeit after the coach gave a press conference saying he expected to coach the team’s game against the 49ers next week — but it was too little, too late to save a lost season. The Bears are now 4-8, the same record they had through 12 games as last season, despite expectations that improved quarterback play and more offensive weapons could lead the team to a playoff berth.

Chicago has to nail its next head coaching hire. Caleb Williams will be the third consecutive Bears first round quarterback to play under a different head coach and offensive system between his rookie and second year. Unless team management wants Williams to end up like Mitchell Trubisky and Justin Fields, it needs to hire a coach that knows how to lead a team, develop young quarterbacks and is accountable for their actions. Eberflus was unable to do any of those three, and that’s why the Bears find themselves once again at square one.