The Bears Sacked Up And Did Something They've Never Done In 104 Years

I'm no Bears fan, but as a Chicagoan for four and a half years and counting, I've been lucky/unlucky enough to be ingraciated into the Bears fanbase, at least to some extent. Be cautious of getting too close.

I've seen their pain. I hear it, emphathize with it, yet always find it hilarious and hope it never ends. Something about seeing people who are deliriously hopeful, despite any reason to be, become sad makes me chuckle. Maybe that's something I should look inwards on. But we can save that for another day.

I've been in Chicago for the entire Matt Eberflus regime. From the questionable hiring, to the continued grievances of his decision making. To the blame of Justin Fields' demise, to the annoyance of his non-firing at the end of last season.

I witnessed the skeptically hopefulness of this season, that even though no one thought he was a good head coach, they professed he did know how to coach defense, well enough to save his job last year, and that the offensive weapons the Bears acquired in the offseason would be enough to catapult them into relevancy.

That's been far from the case. And much of it, if not nearly all, is on the shoulders of Eberflus.

From his hiring of Shane Waldron, who by no possible means could be called anything but a bust hire, to his wishy-washy leadership, with consistently inconsistent accountability practices, there's been a regular sentiment that he's never "had the locker room", or was the leader the team was looking for/needed.

As bad as those things are, winning games and being good with x's and o's can mitigate many in house locker room questions. But that's where the story gets worse for Matty boy.

We'll stick to this season, as going over every bad decision throughout his tenure may make you pull your hair out.

Strike 1

We all remember the Hail Mary in Washington, but it was the decisions leading up to the Hail Mary where Eberflus' ineptitude in late-game decision making started to rear its ugly head.

The penultimate play, with 6 seconds on the clock and no timeouts from Washington's 35, was the play that seemingly broke Matt's brain for the rest of time. He played prevent defense against a Hail Mary and allowed Washington a 13 yard out route to get them within Hail Mary distance of the end zone.

Asked after the game why he allowed that to happen, Eberflus said it "doesn't really matter", insinuating the Hail Mary would've happened regardless.

Uhhhhh.....

Jayden Daniels had to buy time to allow his guys to get down the field. By doing so he backtracked 13 yards, throwing the ball at the 35 yard line, a ball that was two yards shy of the end zone when tipped. Quick math, but if the ball was hiked from the 35, that throw would've been from the 22, and not even sniffed the end zone.

I also watched this Greatest Hail Marys in NFL History video and saw just one pass ever thrown beyond the 35 yard line - the Joe Flacco playoff bomb to Jacoby Jones...that was caught at the 20.

So no Hail Mary (assuming that video encapasulates all of them) has ever reached the end zone when being thrown more than 65 yards, which would've been the case without McLaurin's 13 yard out route. So I think it did matter.

Strike 2

I could say strike 2 was the Patriots game, where the Bears were as laughable as an epsiode of Between Two Ferns, looking completely inept in an embarrassing 19-3 loss at home to a then 2-7 team.

That wasn't a one incident mistake, but rather a 60-minute atrocity. So let's be nice and call that strike 1.5.

Strike two occurred a week later when the Packers came to town. The Bears came out with a heightened sense of energy after the dismissal of Shane Waldron, and were giving the Packers all they could handle. Caleb was quick with his reads, decisive, and the Bears scored their first TD in three weeks. The upset alert was ringing.

After leading an impressive two-minute drive, Caleb and the Bears had the ball at the GB 30 with 35 seconds and one timeout. AKA, all the time in the world. Keep playing and get into chip shot range.

But instead, Dweeberflus (as Chicagoans loved to call him) decided to play pussy ball, running the ball up the middle, burning 28 seconds off the clock, and electing for a 46 yard field goal.

Kickers started this year out on fire, as I mentioned in the week 2 show of Fundamentally Unsound pod, when there were more field goals than TDs and kickers hitting 90% (35 of 39) from 50+. But as is tradition, when the weather starts the turn and the games have more meaning, more kicks are missed. In the last three weeks alone there have been 31 missed field goals (weeks 1 and 2 combined had 12 misses).

So why punt (figuratively) and settle for a 46 yarder, in one of the more difficult places to kick in football, with the weight of a rivalry game on the line, instead of at least trying to give him a kick he can lull himself to sleep with?

Of course that kicked was blocked and the Bears lost by 1. Lol. But the best/worst part, depending who you ask, is that Rich Bisaccia said postgame he'd be surprised if the Packers didn't block a kick that game because Cairo Santos is known to have a low trajectory. Which further makes you question why Eberflus didn't try to get closer to allow more trajectory in the kick. Unless he didn't know? Another postgame comment that challenges the coach's competence.

Strike 3

Cross-sports references get me going, and none are better than "3 strikes you're out". It transcends sports, whether it's in a relationship, your grandpa's racist comments at Thanksgiving, or the amount of times you slip on black ice in the driveway before you decide to shovel; if you slip up three times, it's more than a coincidence and time to do something about it.

You can argue Matt Eberflus got more than three strikes during his Bears tenure, but this year he had two blatant swing and misses, and struck out looking at a fastball down the pipe for strike 3.

The Bears had the Lions on their heels on Thanksgiving in MoTown. Caleb yet again orchestrated a two-minute drill drive to put them in field goal range, threatening to score and win the game outright. A penalty set them back from that, but overtime was a certainty.

He took a sack with 33 seconds on the clock, one timeout in hand (sound familiar), to knock them just outside of field goal range. From here there was two options:

1. Call a timeout. Have the field goal team ready, and run a play anywhere on the field to pick up 5-10 yards. The field goal unit would have ~25 seconds to get ready and snap the ball, something that I'd assume has been practiced a thousand times and should be no big ask.

2. Run the hurry up, taking up to 20 seconds to snap the ball. You have a timeout in your pocket, so assuming a 5-10 yard play takes less than 10 seconds to run (which it does), you have the whole field at your disposal and can call a timeout with 2 seconds left and trot the field goal unit out to tie the game.

Matt Eberflus must've be a fly on the wall in my college study rooms, because as we used to say "when in doubt, choose C". But since there was no C, and as you know by now he clearly has doubts in these situations, he made up his own C.

C. Don't call timeout, watch the clock dwindle as your rookie QB calls an audible, do nothing about it, hike the ball with 6 seconds on the clock, and go deep. Not endzone deep, 10 yard line deep so even if we miraculously complete it we'll be tackled in bounds and the game ends with a timeout in our back pocket.

As I said to begin the blog, I'm no Bears fan. But watching this made me so angry it almost ruined my Thanksgiving. For thirty minutes anything any relative said to me went right over my head and I responded with "Can you believe that just happened? What an idiot". It made me mad for football, that there are people who don't regularly watch the sport that tuned in on Thanksgiving to see that display of incompetence, potentially tainting this beautiful game in some's eyes.

I said he should be fired on the spot. That Bears fans deserve to be thankful that he's no longer the HBIC. But that it probably wouldn't happen, because in the 104 year history of the Bears, they've never relieved a head coach midseason.

In perfect disfunctional fashion, the Bears did right by the fans, players, and organization by letting Eberflus go on Friday, but not until after he held his morning presser where he proclaimed confidence in keeping his job and moving on the San Francisco.

For all the times Matty embarrassed the organization and everyone adjacent to it, maybe it was just to let him embarrass himself. Supposedly they hadn't decided yet. Bull. Shit.

In Chicagoland, the Bears have always been considered a Mom n' Pop organization. A family run business that likes the do things old school, not hurt anyones feelings or do anything that could be considered "wrong". Keep things in house, spend diligently, etc. etc. Hence why they've never fired a head coach, or offensive coordinator, midseason in their 104 year existance.

So as an outsider who holds no personal grudges to the Bears or McKaskey family, I'd like to extend my kudos. Kudos for breaking the cycle that I could understand being hard to break just for the sake of tradition. Kudos for taking steps that have never been taken before for the betterment of the team. Kudos for realizing the urgency of the times, that your QB looks like the real deal, and because of that puts the next three years among the most important years in the franchises' history.

My kudos only goes so far. There's a lot left to do for the Bears, and they need to do things right. Their track record gives me no confidence they'll do so.

But take the wins where you can.