Bear Digest

Time for Bears to End Charade and Let Someone Else Coach the Team

Analysis: The Bears need to make Thursday's game the last one Matt Eberflus coaches for them because they do not benefit by simply beating their heads against a wall over and over.

Gene Chamberlain

Quarterback Caleb Williams consults with Matt Eberflus along the sidelines in the second half of Thursday's Bears loss.
Quarterback Caleb Williams consults with Matt Eberflus along the sidelines in the second half of Thursday's Bears loss. / David Reginek-Imagn Images
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At this point, you need to ask what's the point of Matt Eberflus coaching the Bears for another game?

The best they possibly could do is finish 9-8.

Finishing 9-8 by running the table looks entirely impossible. It would take winning all but one game to improve on last year's 7-10 mark, and if that's the bar for retaining your coach then maybe it's not just the coach who needs to be fired but the GM and the stadium-seeking president as well.

At this point, the famed quote from Mike Ditka in 1989 comes to mind.

“I don't know if this team can win another football game,” Ditka said when his strong of five straight NFC Central titles was ending with an embarrassing loss against the Houston Oilers.

Does anyone really think it's possible for a team incapable of starting solid in a game and finishing a game is going to win a few more times or even once? Even if they do, what good does this do?

This being the case, then why is he even around the team?

Sunday's finish, to be sure, had a great deal to do with Caleb Williams' inability to grasp the situation at game's end. He's too much of a competitor and this much has been evident since Day 1, as he has kept the ball too long without simply throwing it away. If he throws the ball away on the down after Teven Jenkins' penalty, the Bears are still at the 35 with a timeout remaining and plenty of time to run a play or two to get closer for a field goal.

However, Williams took the sack, just as he had earlier this year when he took the Bears out of field goal range in two other games.

"I didn't want to risk, you know, jumping up or trying to throw the ball out of bounds and he knocks it down or a fumble or something," Williams said. "So, you know, took the sack and tried to get everybody, tried to get everybody back like I've like I've been saying and get the last playoff and get rolling."

Suggestion: Take the risk next time. It's not that difficult to throw one sky high in the air and out of bounds downfield even against a good rush.

Here is where the Matt Eberflus responsibility in this whole mess rests.

The clock is running, they have a timeout left, things are in disarray and the ball is all the way back at the 35 when a few plays earlier it looked like a first down inside the 15 after a catch by Keenan Allen, the play when Teven Jenkins was called for an illegal hands to the face.

A coach with a good grasp on game-ending situations would simply see the penalty, where the ball is now at the 35 and it's second-and-20 with 36 seconds left and use the timeout to get everyone on board with the plan.

MATT EBERFLUS EXPLAINS HIS PART IN DEFEAT: VIDEO

They could get a quick play in to gain back 5 to 10 yards and put the ball back in easy range of a Cairo Santos field goal, they run up to the line and then down the ball with four or three seconds left on third down to set up the game-tying field goal try.

The chance for winning it in regulation was all gone. Eberflus should have realized this. So should Williams, but at this point, as a rookie, he's doing what he's told.

"Whatever that situation is, that's going to be coach's call," Williams said. "Maybe in the later years of my career."

The suggestion here for him is to act like it is indeed the later years of his career and start making decisions himself on the field because whatever is coming in from the sidelines is not getting it done.

So Eberflus could have then had the tie and gone to overtime after a miracle comeback for the second straight week simply by taking a timeout after the penalty, having a plan put in place to get the field goal and use their remaining plays and seconds wisely by having players ready to rush to the line of scrimmae. They could have even run it on second down, like they planned eventually, and got up and grounded the ball.

In overtime, they would have had momentum. The Lions' defense hadn't been able to stop them most of the second half.

Instead, they try another pass and when Williams is sacked not only is he out of field goal range but the entire scenario changes. Now they plan was for a running play by Williams, he said anyway, and then use the timeout for a field goal that would have been farther back.

A coach who is calm, experienced and well-versed in strategy would have known what to do, thought ahead a down or two and tied the score. An offensive side coach would have definitely known it, anyway.

"We're so close," Eberflus said.

They've been so close for quite a while now. It's been six weeks, as a matter of fact. It's three straight late-game heartbreaks and four in six games when strategic blunders all weighed in on or caused defeat.

"It's tough doing all of that and then not being able to come out with the win," Williams said.

At this point, a Bears turnaround with this head coach would be unimaginable, and continuing to lose close games with strategy that makes the head coach look like Inspector Clouseau does not benefit Williams, or any of the younger players or even older players. All Williams got out of it besides the frustration is a bruised left knee courtesy of a cheap shot by the Lions.

They're just learning to lose close games. Congratulations on acquiring that talent and congratulations on keeping that timeout until the end of the game.

It's time to let someone else try to take this team and try to get them over the hump that they are supposedly so close to getting over.

Twitter: BearsOnSI

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.