How the Chicago Bears found a new level of incompetence and misery – and it might cost Matt Eberflus his job
DETROIT – Forty-nine minutes had passed after Thursday’s game at Ford Field had ended and six minutes had elapsed since Chicago Bears coach Matt Eberflus began his postgame news conference. It was then, and only then, that Eberflus finally indicated that he was still somewhat attached to reality.
Asked directly if he was worried about his job security, Eberflus nodded. “I mean, this is the NFL,” he said. “And I know where it is. I’m just going to put my best foot forward. And I’ll get to work and keep grinding.” At this point, it’s over. The Eberflus experiment is cooked. There’s next to no chance Eberflus will still have his office at Halas Hall beyond Week 18 of the regular season.
And it might take some mental gymnastics from general manager Ryan Poles – with team president Kevin Warren as his sounding board – to keep the head coach’s key card to the facility activated beyond this holiday weekend. That’s how astounding Thursday’s 23-20 loss to the Detroit Lions was, another defeat decided on the final play amid so much Bears chaos and sloppiness. Indeed, the whole football world knows where it is now. There’s no coming back from this.
The Bears’ latest calamity ended Thursday with an absolutely astounding final-minute fiasco. It was coaching malpractice of the highest order with a dash of player failure mixed in, playing out in front of 64,275 spectators at Ford Field and giving a stunned national TV audience plenty to discuss over the Thanksgiving appetizer spread. How? How in the name of George Stanley Halas was this possible?
How did the oft-clumsy Bears become even more inept than usual, going from first down at the Lions 25 with 26 seconds remaining and the clock stopped – and well inside range for a game-tying field goal – to a bewildering loss that sent them back to Chicago with their sixth consecutive defeat; with their final timeout unused; with a possible fourth-down snap disintegrating?
