The timeline has become clear over the past couple of days. Matt Eberflus bungled the final 30 seconds against Detroit on Thanksgiving. His failure to call a timeout cost the Chicago Bears precious seconds, which led to their inability even to force overtime with a field goal attempt. In the post-game locker room, Eberflus tried to console players with another of his “stick together” speeches but it backfired spectacularly. Jaylon Johnson and others exploded on him for a good 10-15 minutes, forcing the head coach to leave the room. GM Ryan Poles was said to be “infuriated” with how the game ended. According to some accounts, he was beat red. He knew it was time to have a conversation with George McCaskey.
Things had reached a boiling point. Despite everything, Eberflus still showed up for his usual morning presser a day after the game. He thought he was safe, eager to look towards San Francisco. Two hours later, he was fired. Poles and team president Kevin Warren approached McCaskey about the issue. It was long, blunt, and detailed. Ultimately, ownership acquiesced to fire its head coach midseason for the first time in 105 years.
Jason Lieser of the Chicago Sun-Times revealed details of that. Contrary to popular myth, it wasn’t what fans probably expected.
While Warren, Poles and chairman George McCaskey surely had a lot of thoughts about Eberflus on Thursday, they did not meet to discuss his future until Friday at 7:30 a.m. at Halas Hall. Poles was furious with Eberflus’ mishandling of the ending, a source said, and preferred to calm down and have a conversation free of emotion.
The three most powerful people in the organization met for three hours, unconcerned at the time that Eberflus was scheduled to hold his day-after-game news conference at 9 a.m. on Zoom. He logged on unaware that he would be fired within two hours and perhaps unaware of the meeting.
It was a bad look for the Bears, who made the right decision but executed it the wrong way. It could’ve been avoided merely by changing his schedule and making up a reason for the public, but a source said there was little attention given to that. There was total preoccupation with making a decision.
It was Poles’ call, and Warren said in a statement he supported it. It was not a tough sell to McCaskey to break from the franchise’s 105-year tradition of not firing a coach in-season, a source said.
He also may have learned lessons from past mistakes. The Bears owner was in a similar situation a decade ago. Marc Trestman had lost the locker room due to his subdued leadership style. Blowout losses mounted. His defense reached historic levels of bad. Yet the Bears refused to fire him midseason. That led to a rapid deterioration in the locker room. Players formed factions. There was no unity. This time, McCaskey seemed to recognize there was no upside to letting Eberflus finish out the string.
It appears he, too, had reached the end of his patience with the head coach. Poles is said to have wanted to make a change after the loss to New England. However, ownership wanted to see if Eberflus could dig himself out as he’d done last year. When it became clear that wouldn’t happen, George McCaskey gave the green light. For once, common sense prevailed. Poles and Warren have begun the research process on a replacement, while Thomas Brown gets five games to audition for the job. We’ll find out if the extra time proves useful.
