Matt Eberflus’ postgame message to “stay together” after the Chicago Bears’ Thanksgiving loss to the Detroit Lions reportedly did not go down well with members of the team.
THE Disconcerting final 32 seconds of the game that saw the Bears not use their final timeout while leading 23-20 to set up a tying field goal was not only poorly received by 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, the team’s captain, was “emotional and upset” about the end of the game and directed his anger at Eberflus.
Johnson wasn’t the only Bear upset. Several players and staff members reportedly wondered why no timeout was called. But it wasn’t just another loss for the 4-8 team.
“The guys were furious,” said one staff member. “It was a build-up from this season.”
“The locker room was ugly,” said another staff member. “There was a lot of screaming.”
The first player said: “As players we felt like there were too many instances where we were fighting our way back into matches only to lose due to poor time management and poor decision making.”
Eberflus would have left the locker room as soon as he finished his speech and spoke with the players.
On Friday, as Bears executives discussed their next steps, Eberflus held his usual video conference with reporters. Shortly after, he was unemployed.
Why was Eberflus allowed to answer questions shortly before being fired? Team owner George McCaskey, president and CEO Kevin Warren and general manager Ryan Poles had not decided on the move before their meeting and the feeling was that if the Eberflus media session was canceled or postponed , the alarm bell would ring that a decision had been made. do.
The Bears had never fired a head coach in a season until Friday. Eberflus gave them plenty of reasons to make this decision, which led to the Thanksgiving disaster. Once the locker room left, his time was up.
