The Bears have fired head coach Matt Eberflus after Chicago lost in a disastrous finish to the Detroit Lions, the team announced on Friday.
Eberflus was coaching in his third season with the Bears, and held a 14-32 record over his two-plus campaigns.
The Bears lost on Thursday to the Lions by a score of 23-20. With the team in range to kick a potential game-tying field goal late in the fourth quarter, quarterback Caleb Williams was sacked with 32 seconds remaining on the clock.
With a timeout in hand, Eberflus watched as the rookie Williams slowly tried to get the team set before ultimately calling an audible and missing the throw as time expired.
“The hope was we could re-rack the play, snap it with about 18 seconds left, throw it into field-goal range and call the timeout,” Eberflus said.
The clock, though, ran beyond 18 seconds and beyond Eberflus’ other benchmarks.
“Once it gets under 12, we can’t throw a pass to the sideline, and once it gets under seven, you have to throw the ball to the end zone,” he said. “At that point, if you call a timeout, it is to throw it to the end zone.”
When Williams realized no timeout was coming, he hurriedly changed the play call to a deep pass to Rome Odunze, but it fell incomplete just short of the end zone.
While Williams did not question his coach's judgement, other Bears players were confused as to how the game ended that way.
“We can call a timeout there or we cannot,” Williams said. “I’m not going to say I was surprised. My job is just to go out there and make plays. I let the coaches and everybody make that decision — it is their call. Maybe in the later years of my career, it will be my call.”
Star wide receiver DJ Moore was far more critical of the entire ending of the contest. "We just s--- the bed," Moore said. "We gotta find a way to win these games. We keep coming back with a chance to win these games."