Matt Eberflus may walk away from Thanksgiving without much to give thanks for.
After the Bears’ latest loss that concluded in a final series of disastrous seconds to lose to the Lions 23-20 for their sixth straight loss and eighth of the season, fans and the sports world are calling for the head coach’s axing.
The CBS broadcasters couldn’t get past Eberflus’ horrendous clock management by finishing the game with a time out in his pocket.
“This is unacceptable from the head-coach position,” Matt Ryan said on the postgame broadcast. “This is your responsibility is to not panic in critical situations and give your team the best opportunity to win games. That’s a massive, massive fail by Matt Eberflus.”
“The players are not without fault. They made mistakes with those penalties,” Nate Burleson added. “But on the coaching side, this was a time management collapse. I don’t want to call for anyone’s job, but these are the type of late-game decisions — or lack thereof — that got people fired.”
Bill Cowher was also quick to note that this is not Eberflus’ first late-game flop, and with 36 seconds left on the clock after quarterback Caleb Williams was sacked, he failed to call a timeout to regroup his offense.
“You have a 3rd-and-26, run another play, get in field goal range, you have plenty of time to run your field goal unit out,” Cowher said.
Many sports heads took to X to share their opinions as well after the detrimental loss.
“Eberflus is my favorite bad coach – they need to extend him for 2 years he’s so entertaining,” the Ringer founder Bill Simmons wrote on X.
“Matt Eberflus just made a Thanksgiving mistake he may never recover from,” RGIII wrote on X. “YOU CAN’T END THAT GAME WITH A TIMEOUT IN HAND. He’s coaching like he is on the hot seat, feeling the pressure and has been lost in the biggest moments all year. The Bears are repeating the cycle.”
Mike Greenberg added: “There is absolutely no excuse for an #NFL coach to allow that to happen. Hell, there is no excuse for a high school coach. With a timeout in his pocket. Inexcusable. In a season filled with coaching blunders, this was a new low.”
Eberflus is in his third season in Chicago and has yet to lead the team to a winning season. In his first year under the helm, the Bears went 3-14 with Justin Fields under center and not much improved in the following year’s 7-10 season.
They went on to pick Williams with the No.1 overall pick of the 2024 Draft, but the Bears have yet to find a groove in their 4-8 season.
Prior to Chicago, Eberflus was the defensive coordinator for the Colts for four seasons, which included two playoff appearances.
“Eberflus not realizing they didn’t have a timeout needs to be the final moment of his coaching career with the Bears,” Nick Wright of “First Things First” posted.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
