The postgame message of “sticking together” from Matt Eberflus following the Chicago Bears’ Thanksgiving Day loss to the Detroit Lions reportedly did not go over well with members of the team.
The confounding final 32 seconds of the game that saw the Bears fail to use their final timeout as they were driving down 23-20 to set up a game-tying field goal did not just go over poorly with the front office — Eberflus was fired on Friday — he also lost some of his players.
According to The Athletic’s Adam Jahns and Dianna Russini cornerback Jaylon Johnson, a team captain, was “emotional and pissed” about the game’s ending and directed his anger towards Eberflus.
Johnson wasn’t the only upset Bear. Multiple players and staff members were reportedly wondering why no timeout was called. But it also wasn’t just about another loss for the 4-8 team.
“Guys were furious,” a staff member said. “It was an accumulation of this season.”
“The locker room was ugly,” another staffer said. “There was a lot of yelling.”
Said the first player: “We felt as players it’s been too many instances where we fought our way back into games to lose because of bad time management and decision-making.”
Eberflus reportedly exited the locker room as soon as he was done with his speech and speaking with players.
On Friday, while Bears brass was discussing their next steps, Eberflus held his regularly scheduled video conference with reporters. Not long after, he was out of a job.
Why was Eberflus allowed to answer questions shortly before he was fired? Team owner George McCaskey, president and CEO Kevin Warren and general manager Ryan Poles had not decided on the move until they held their meeting and the feeling was if Eberflus’ media session was cancelled or postponed, alarm bells would be ringing that a decision had been made.
The Bears had never fired a head coach during a season until Friday. Eberflus gave them numerous reasons to make the move leading up to the Thanksgiving disaster. Once the locker room was gone, his time had run out.