OK, let’s recount the events of the day in Chicago for those just catching up.
The Bears got back from the latest disaster of a loss in Detroit on Thursday and many fans — and many in local media — were speculating Friday would be the last day of the Matt Eberflus era.
It turns out, they were right. For the first time in franchise history, the Chicago Bears fired their head coach mid-season. Matt Eberflus did what Marc Trestman, John Fox and Matt Nagy could not, forcing the front office to eat the rest of his contract.
We don’t need to debate whether or not the team was right to make this bit of history because each of Chicago’s last six losses made it abundantly clear he had to go.
Maybe it’s because the Bears are so new at this that they screwed it up.
Eberflus showed up to work on Friday morning, where he apparently met with the front office before addressing the media in a previously scheduled press conference.
When Eberflus was late for that press conference, fans and media began speculating he wouldn’t show up at all.
After he took the podium, Eberflus appeared to give himself the dreaded vote of confidence, telling reporters, “I’m confident that I’ll be working on San Francisco and getting ready for [next week’s] game”.
Two hours later he was unemployed.
The Chicago Bears really made this dude go out and meet the press, talk about his plans for the future of the team and then axed him. They wasted the time of the media (negligible, honestly) and created a second news cycle about the inner-workings of a franchise that would send Eberflus out to spew nonsense despite knowing he would be fired before lunch.
For the Bears to trot Matt Eberflus out for a press conference only to fire him two hours later … that's what poorly-run organizations do.
— Kevin Fishbain (@kfishbain) November 29, 2024
Why did the Bears let Eberflus do another press conference to fire him an hour later? An unserious organization.
— Carrington Harrison (@cdotharrison) November 29, 2024
It's a high-key organizational failure that the Bears had Matt Eberflus do a day-after press conference before firing him later that morning. https://t.co/eZMhMgzI90
— Myles Simmons (@MylesASimmons) November 29, 2024
So to recap …
– Matt Eberflus had a 9-min Zoom call with the media
– "Normal operation" right now at Halas Hall
– He will meet with Ryan Poles and Kevin Warren later today.
– Bears players have weekend off and will return on Monday. pic.twitter.com/gLdfWaU7bM
— Adam Jahns (@adamjahns) November 29, 2024
The Bears’ reputation for its unwillingness to fire head coaches during the season was admirable in some ways. It made the job a bit more attractive to prospective hires who could reliably assume they’d get a full year in Chicago no matter how bad things got. There’s something to be said about building up goodwill among the small circle of coaches and coordinators.
Yet that goodwill was wasted the moment Chicago sent a soon-to-be-fired coach to face the media on his final day on the job.
Even the players seemingly knew this was dirty work. Bears safety Jaquan Brisker posted a single emoji when Eberflus showed up late for his press conference that pretty much made clear how the locker room is feeling.
— Quanny B. (@JaquanBrisker) November 29, 2024
And when Eberflus’ firing was officially announced, he posted once more.
God don’t make mistakes.
— Quanny B. (@JaquanBrisker) November 29, 2024
A normal franchise would have cut Eberflus loose first thing Friday morning. A serious franchise would’ve fired him weeks ago before the Washington Hail Mary fiasco devolved into a six-game losing streak. A charter NFL franchise would seemingly know all of this, but you’ll have to excuse the 104-year-old team for attempting gymnastics before it could walk. It’s hard for this franchise to act like it’s been there before when, by it’s own volition, Chicago has avoided this debacles like this at all costs.
Instead just think of it as the Bears handing Eberflus one last inexplicable loss for the road.
