GM Ryan Poles stated on Monday that two reasons drove his decision to fire Matt Eberflus as head coach of the Chicago Bears. The first and most obvious was the late-game failures. Eberflus’ inability to make smart decisions in the final minutes of close games had become a trend they could no longer ignore after the disaster in Detroit. The other part was the locker room. Player discontent had been evident for weeks, but nothing explosive had happened. Everything changed on Thanksgiving when Jaylon Johnson and others railed against Eberflus for his baffling refusal to call a timeout to preserve a field goal try.
Poles, who had apparently been pushing ownership to make a change weeks ago, finally got the green light. The Bears fired a head coach midseason for the first time in over 100 years. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reached out to sources to gauge the locker room’s reaction when that happened. The response was, to borrow his word, “jubilation.” It wasn’t just because Eberflus was gone, but also because ownership showed a willingness to try something different for once.
Not only does offensive coordinator Thomas Brown, now interim head coach, have a chance to audition for the job, but the team brass has an extra five months to conduct exhaustive research on every possible candidate. Brown is said to have massive support behind the scenes, mainly from players. He indeed conducts himself like a future head coach. If he can churn out a couple of wins over the next few weeks, the Bears may not have to conduct a search at all. They can hand him the job and let him retool the staff.
Otherwise, the team should have a well-crafted plan of attack when the regular season ends. The question is whether they are willing to wait for the right candidate to become available, assuming he currently works for a playoff team. Historically, the Chicago Bears don’t like waiting to hire their guy by late January at the latest. If it’s Ben Johnson, Aaron Glenn, Kellen Moore, or Joe Brady, they may have to wait until February since their teams look like Super Bowl contenders. It would certainly contrast with how things went with Matt Eberflus.
