The Bears finally did it! They finally fired Matt Eberflus. This is the first time in the Bears' hundred-plus year history that they fired a head coach during a season. If you ask me, this is long overdue.
Even back in the preseason and early in the regular season, when the Bears were looking pretty good, I was skeptical of the coaching staff. I was surprised that Eberflus survived last year. Back when everyone thought the Bears were tanking the 2023 in order to draft Caleb Williams, I was insistent that tanking and retaining Eberflus would be a bad idea. I'm not going to re-hash that entire rant, but the core thesis is that it is impossible to tell if a team or coaching staff is tanking on purpose, or if they are just bad. In the case of Eberflus and his coaching staff, it looks like they were just bad.
I hate to say this, but I told you so!
Matt Eberflus was fired after multiple controversial losses.
This firing comes on the heels of a heartbreaking loss to the Lions on Thanksgiving day, in which the Bears mis-managed the clock at the end of the game and forfeited their opportunity to stop the clock and kick a game-tying field goal in the final seconds. This capped a 6-game loosing streak in which the Bears gave up a Hail Mary on the final play against the Commanders, and also mis-managed the clock in other games, with an opportunity to tie or win.
Those high-profile instances of mis-management at the end of games are not the entirety of Eberflus' poor performance. In my opinion, the horrendously inconsistent play of the offensive line, and the constant pressure being applied to Caleb Williams has been a huge red flag all along. Could it be that the offensive line is just bad? Sure. But in my opinion, a big part of the problem was poor scheming and communication, which ultimately comes down to coaching. In fact, these offensive problems lead to Eberflus firing offensive coordinator Shane Waldron earlier in the season.
This team and coaching staff has been dysfunctional for years, and I just can't believe that it took this long for Ryan Poles to finally realize it as well. I've really liked (or at least understood) a lot of Poles' decisions when it has come to player personnel. He's made some fantastically savvy trades. But his judgement doesn't seem to be as good when it comes to hiring coaches.
In the meantime, Thomas Brown, the offensive coordinator who replaced Waldron, will be named the interim head coach for the remainder of the 2024 season.
Photo credit: Daniel Maers, Detroit News.
The Bears must now evaluate interim head coach Thomas Brown,
or pursue candidates like Ben Johnson in the offseason.
This season is completely squandered. Any hopes that the Bears had of making the playoffs evaporated after the Thanksgiving loss. Some might suggest that the Bears should just tank the rest of this season. Obviously, I still think that would be a horrible idea. Bears management needs to know if Brown is capable of doing the job long-term, or if they should pursue alternative coaching candidtates, such as Lions' offensive coordinator Ben Johnson (who has previously expressed interest in the Bears job, and who the Bears should have hired last year). And similarly, Brown (and the Bears' management) needs to know how good their roster actually is.
So no, the Bears should not tank the rest of the 2024 season, even though it looks like that's what they've been doing since the start.