The Chicago Bears are making a rare midseason coaching change by firing head coach Matt Eberflus.
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Multiple NFL insiders reported the news Friday afternoon. They noted that offensive coordinator Thomas Brown will take over as interim coach for the rest of the season. Eberflus will end his tenure with a 14-32 record.
Just how rare is a midseason coaching change in Chicago? According to ESPN's Adam Schefter, this is the first time in the team's 100-plus year history that it has made an in-season coaching change for this reason.
The only time the Bears replaced their head coach midseason was 1942.
George Halas, who also owned the team, left after 5 games and entered the Navy as a commissioned officer during World War II.
— Paul Hembekides (Hembo) (@PaulHembo) November 29, 2024
The firing takes place after a three-point loss to the rival Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving. The score was close, but the loss was anything but ordinary. It came down to an issue with clock management.
The Bears had the ball on the Lions' 35-yard line with under one minute remaining. Quarterback Caleb Williams dropped back to pass with 36 seconds remaining in the game. The Lions sacked him and set up third down with just over 30 seconds remaining.
The Bears had a timeout available to stop the clock and regroup. They did not use it. Instead, Williams called an audible at the line and took more time off the clock. The offense snapped the ball with a mere six seconds remaining.
Williams had enough time to throw a pass, which fell incomplete as time expired.
"Our hope was, because it was third (down) going into fourth, that we would re-rack that play at 18 seconds, throw it inbounds, get into field goal range, and then call the timeout," Eberflus said after the loss.
"That's where it was and that was our decision-making process on that. Again, we were outside the field goal range, so we needed to get a few more yards in there, as close as we can get, and then we were going to call a timeout, and that's why we held that last timeout."
Eberflus continued and said that he liked what the offense did in that situation and that he thinks they "handled it the right way." The situation just didn't play out how they wanted.
The embattled coach met with media members again on Friday morning and expressed confidence that he would be the head coach in Week 14 as the Bears face the 49ers. Hours later, the team fired him.
