Bears call time on Matt Eberflus after Thanksgiving Day debacle vs. Lions

When the Seahawks play the Bears in Week 17, Matt Eberflus won’t be on the sidelines.

The Chicago Bears had never fired a head coach in the middle of the season in their 100-year history. Matt Eberflus said, “challenge accepted.”

I guess there’s a first time for everything. The Bears have fired Eberflus after six consecutive defeats (four of them by one possession), leaving Eberflus with a timeout in his pocket.

Thomas Brown has been named the interim head coach, having previously served as the interim offensive coordinator when former Seahawks OC Shane Waldron was fired.

After that unbelievable time management meltdown, Eberflus insisted that what the entire country witnessed was actually handled the right way, even though Chicago had a timeout left and was at least in fringe field goal range. While rookie QB Caleb Williams shouldn’t escape blame for his role in this ending, Eberflus is ultimately the head coach and he might as well have been replaced by a mannequin. This was an all-time disaster.

Eberflus ends his Bears tenure with a 5-19 record in one-possession games, and four of those losses have come over the last six weeks. Even the Jayden Daniels Hail Mary throw in the Washington Commanders game can be attributed to poor coaching, as the Bears gave up an uncontested 13-yard throw to the sidelines on the penultimate play, allowing Daniels to have a shot at reaching the end zone. Eberflus said that play “didn’t matter,” even though it clearly did.

This firing is relevant to the Seattle Seahawks on a couple of fronts. Chicago’s next game is at the San Francisco 49ers, and depending on what happens to the 49ers this weekend, the Bears could all but end San Francisco’s playoff hopes. A couple of weeks after that, the Bears host the Seahawks the day after Christmas on Thursday Night Football. In an ideal world, the Seahawks will have already clinched the NFC West (which is mathematically possible). Realistically, this is still a big game that may decide Seattle’s season one way or another.

In other words, Seattle’s two “easiest” games left on the schedule from now until the end of the season will be against interim coaches, starting with this Sunday against the New York Jets.