Bears 8.0: Matt Eberflus FIRED

[dice]

Situational football. We always hear Eberflus talking about it. Why didn’t he know what he should’ve done in this situation if the **** hit the fan? 36 some seconds left. Getting into game tying field goal position. Second and third down. 1 timeout. The team is disorganized, frantic and I have a rookie quarterback. Entirely predictable situation. How about a timeout before it’s too late?

because it was NOT a predictable situation, let alone "entirely predictable." getting sacked w/ under 30 seconds to put you just outside of FG range w/ a single TO remaining is an extremely rare situation. all the coaching staff can do there is quickly determine that a TO CANNOT be called there, get a play called in quickly and communicate the urgency of the situation to the QB in case HE's not aware of the situation. they probably didn't do good enough on that last part, because caleb clearly was not operating w/ sufficient urgency

We can quibble about what the plans were, and whatever went wrong. The coach didn’t call timeout.

he wasn't supposed to!

:32 caleb hits the ground
:26 shelton has to tell him to get things moving faster
:16 everyone is lined up properly but play is still being communicated down the line to outer receivers

at that point you still have several seconds to snap the ball and get a short to medium completion and call a TO. every play call except deep route available

:09 everyone ready and looking at caleb. last chance! he surveys the defense like it's a normal play
:07 nantz shouts "you'd better hurry!"
:06 romo follows w/ "oh no" as ball is snapped

so when was flus supposed to call the TO?

maybe he senses the impending disaster just before nance and calls TO w/ 8 secs? now you can only throw a quick sideline route. detroit blankets the sideline and you're highly likely left w/ a hail mary

flus calls TO at ANY OTHER POINT before that you then have to complete a pass and run on the FG unit. and regardless of results we're now saying "WTF didn't you just run another play and THEN call TO to let them set up properly? he really wanted THIS FG unit rushing onto the field?"

Of course it’s predictable. These scenarios are their job to imagine and have plans for. Or at least be able to call a timeout to get a grasp on.


When? How about right after the sack? Any time that things looked out of control. Immediately I’d say. Any time. I really don’t understand your argument. Is this the argument that with over 30 seconds left it’s too late to call a timeout at any point? What? I didn’t say anything that a litany of NFL coaches and NFL people aren’t saying. Disagreement with Cower and Jimmy Johnson is fair, but I’m going with them dice.

when did they say to take the TO? right after the sack? running the FG team out is the proper play there? and it's obvious? maybe if you've already tried it the other way and it's failed

they had OVER 20 SECONDS after the sack to get another play off. teams DO practice that all the time. it's called a hurry-up offense!

if a TO is called immediately, caleb takes his time and finds an open receiver in the field of play (or scrambles into FG range), then the FG unit would get (wait for it) 20+ seconds to scramble into position and snap it. 6...5...4.... anything goes wrong and people are criticizing flus for not trusting caleb

so the question is who you trust more to execute a play after hustling into formation- caleb and the offense or the kicking unit. unless the correct answer is the kicking unit and it's obvious, kinda hard to criticize what flus did

frankly, in this wasted season i don't even want a do over. let caleb's lesson stand

[fleet]

Who said that?

I'll wait.....

I mean, you are.

Quote please...

Because I'm pretty sure I've said multiple times Flus now and over the past few weeks that Flus needed to go.

All I'm saying is that it is easy to point the finger at Flus and his historically poor time management, but for this last series, the offense actually crapped the bad on those last few plays.

You are having an argument with exactly nobody on that bolder portion. Your Eberflus points amount to: Difficult situation. Yah. Again, nobody argues differently. I still struggle to understand what is your larger point of contention

[Dresden]

Over thirty seconds left down 3 in long FG range on 3rd down with a TO left is as predictable as it gets

Wait, you wanted to call a TO to kick a 58 yard FG on 3rd down with over 30 seconds left?

You call TO to go over the game plan with your team, including your rookie QB who just got smashed. You can still do a short pass out of bounds to kick a FG or tell the team if it’s completed in bounds to hurry up and spike the ball.

Except it was like 3rd and 26 or something, so unless you pick up the first down, very unlikely, you can't spike the ball because it's 4th down.

[fleet]

because it was NOT a predictable situation, let alone "entirely predictable." getting sacked w/ under 30 seconds to put you just outside of FG range w/ a single TO remaining is an extremely rare situation. all the coaching staff can do there is quickly determine that a TO CANNOT be called there, get a play called in quickly and communicate the urgency of the situation to the QB in case HE's not aware of the situation. they probably didn't do good enough on that last part, because caleb clearly was not operating w/ sufficient urgency


he wasn't supposed to!

:32 caleb hits the ground
:26 shelton has to tell him to get things moving faster
:16 everyone is lined up properly but play is still being communicated down the line to outer receivers

at that point you still have several seconds to snap the ball and get a short to medium completion and call a TO. every play call except deep route available

:09 everyone ready and looking at caleb. last chance! he surveys the defense like it's a normal play
:07 nantz shouts "you'd better hurry!"
:06 romo follows w/ "oh no" as ball is snapped

so when was flus supposed to call the TO?

maybe he senses the impending disaster just before nance and calls TO w/ 8 secs? now you can only throw a quick sideline route. detroit blankets the sideline and you're highly likely left w/ a hail mary

flus calls TO at ANY OTHER POINT before that you then have to complete a pass and run on the FG unit. and regardless of results we're now saying "WTF didn't you just run another play and THEN call TO to let them set up properly? he really wanted THIS FG unit rushing onto the field?"

Of course it’s predictable. These scenarios are their job to imagine and have plans for. Or at least be able to call a timeout to get a grasp on.


When? How about right after the sack? Any time that things looked out of control. Immediately I’d say. Any time. I really don’t understand your argument. Is this the argument that with over 30 seconds left it’s too late to call a timeout at any point? What? I didn’t say anything that a litany of NFL coaches and NFL people aren’t saying. Disagreement with Cower and Jimmy Johnson is fair, but I’m going with them dice.

when did they say to take the TO? right after the sack? running the FG team out is the proper play there? and it's obvious? maybe if you've already tried it the other way and it's failed

they had OVER 20 SECONDS after the sack to get another play off. teams DO practice that all the time. it's called a hurry-up offense!

if a TO is called immediately, caleb takes his time and finds an open receiver in the field of play (or scrambles into FG range), then the FG unit would get (wait for it) 20+ seconds to scramble into position and snap it. 6...5...4.... anything goes wrong and people are criticizing flus for not trusting caleb

so the question is who you trust more to execute a play after hustling into formation- caleb and the offense or the kicking unit. unless the correct answer is the kicking unit and it's obvious, kinda hard to criticize what flus did

frankly, in this wasted season i don't even want a do over. let caleb's lesson stand

Fair. No alternative possibilities for Flus. Ok then, I am turned around. The Bears and everyone else in the entire world need to read this thread to learn a thing or two about the real situation facing Flus on Thanksgiving.

[Charlesareed]

Our rookie QB wasn’t perfect but 3 TD, 0 INT, 256 yards, set the record for most consecutive passes by a rookie in the NFL without a TD, and set the record for most passing yards by a rookie in a Bears season.

And?
None of that mattered in the final 46 seconds.
Flus gets plenty of blame (and got the axe), but that final 46 seconds was mostly on the players.

Without question, it was a collective failure to end the game. You have detailed how the players did not execute. Many people have detailed how Flus failed.

There isn't a lot of ways for Flus to impact a game. Games are usually won and loss by the players. But Flus was put in a position to impact the game, overcome his players' shortcomings and still keep the team in a position to succeed. You know what he did when that opportunity arose? He did nothing.

I agree that the players lack of execution to end the game was the large reason for the loss. Flus doing nothing has no excuse. I personally cannot look at the players shortcomings and wonder why it's happening when I see who the head coach is.

EDIT: But hey, if we're gonna do a deep dive, I've got to put a spotlight on or new head coach.

Caleb changing Rome's route...Caleb says he did this because he knew this was the final play of the game and it was endzone or bust. When the sack happens and the communication channel opens back up between the OC and the QB, is the OC not communicating to his rookie qb - "we need positive yardage...anywhere on the field...doesn't matter...gain yards and then we call a timeout." Or something to that effect? Was our rookie qb unaware there was 1 time-out remaining?

A lot happened on the bears part this loss is on everyone the coaches & the players a timeout was supposed to have been called Caleb was unaware of the team having 1 timeout remaining but did the coaches tell him when he went to the sidelines that last time during the timeout who knows it’s the coach job to get the team back in shape a lot was going on he saw all this and did nothing with the final timeout = more bad coaching on his part and it cost him his job

[Dresden]

I think what was unpredictable in that situation was that one minute you're sitting at the 25, first down, thinking how do I get in the end zone? Then you have a nice gain wiped out by penalty, pushed back 10 yards, then a sack, lose another 7 yards, and suddenly it's 3rd and 26, 30 seconds left, the clock ticking, and you now are no longer in FG range.

I think in the old days, you just go "ok, down and out to Moore", or "short down and in to Allen". Nowadays, the play call is 30 words long, and has to be adjusted on the line by QB once he sees what the coverage is. Bart Starr would have known what to do in that situation. In the era of headsets, multiple players going in motion, etc., it's probably a lot for a rookie QB to process. Not to mention that on the last play he got gang tackled by two 250 pound linemen.

But I agree with the idea that if your QB looks confused, or things aren't moving along, you call a TO with maybe 18-20 seconds left, and hope you can somehow get a sideline pass in, or a very quick slant. And during the TO you make sure everyone knows what they need to do, i.e., kicking team has to be ready to run out there, etc. I think that would be preferable to not doing anything.

And who knows, maybe if that kick didn't get blocked in GB, Eberflus would have just run the ball once from the 25 and gone for OT?

[fleet]

Peo9le are forgetting that last part. No one thought Eberflus was absolutely an issue last year. Some, wanted an upgrade but I dint remember anyone blinking much of an eye last off-season because Getsy was gone and so was Fields.

I don't know what the consensus opinion on Eberflus was last year, but many people wanted him gone before the season started and wanted to start with a clean slate and better coach with Caleb.

For sure. Many people were definitely concerned at the time that Poles was screwing this up, and turns out, Poles did screw it up. Some of them are TYSing on Twitter

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This hire makes or breaks Poles

Yes. For the Bears though, risky to let Poles make the call after all that’s happened. A Thomas Brown immediately becoming wildly successful enough to be retained is the only person able to pull Poles’ berries out of the fire as far as making Caleb’s development less difficult than it ever needed to be.

[fleet]

Alternatively, at least as far as this season goes, maybe Poles has wanted to fire Eberflus well before Thanksgiving after Poles’ realized his mistake, but Poles wasn’t allowed to fire Eberflus until the NFL media and social media complex began laughing at the Bears Thursday. The salient issue for me is that someone in Lake Forest that is in position to make decisions was never doing a good job on the coaching staff, and they are still in place to have at it again.

[Howling Mad]

As Cowher said, as soon as the sack happened you take the timeout. You have 30 or so seconds left to hit one play you know will work for 7-10 yards to give Santos a chance to tie within the 50 yard range.

Another show debated how long it takes for the FG team to come out if the pass was left in the middle of the field, and the consensus was 15-20 seconds would have been plenty of time. Adding, every team practices that fire drill and if the special teams weren't ready for at 30 seconds, they could have been after a timeout with 20 second running clock.

[panthermark]

As Cowher said, as soon as the sack happened you take the timeout. You have 30 or so seconds left to hit one play you know will work for 7-10 yards to give Santos a chance to tie within the 50 yard range.

Another show debated how long it takes for the FG team to come out if the pass was left in the middle of the field, and the consensus was 15-20 seconds would have been plenty of time. Adding, every team practices that fire drill and if the special teams weren't ready for at 30 seconds, they could have been after a timeout with 20 second running clock.

To me it feels a lot like hindsight. Now that I know how it turned out, of course I would have called a TO as soon as the sack happened. At the time of the play I thought "I wonder if they will call a TO or hurry-up?".
I'm just being honest, I was completely fine with the strategy.

Just to point this out. It is fair to expect the FG team to run out on the field and kick the ball in 15-20 seconds, but is unfair to expect the offense that is already out on the field to run a play in 20 seconds?

If the offense runs a play in 20 seconds instead of 25-26 seconds, you have enough time for a completion and a TO for a FG attempt.
It didn't happen.
Bears take an L
Flus gets the axe
Oh well....

[nomorezorro]

eberflus explicitly said the plan was to snap the ball with around 18 seconds left. once you get to that point and things are still clearly in a state of distress, you burn the timeout then. 15-17 seconds left on 3rd and 26 is not optimal, but you can at least prepare your team to run two more plays minimum, plus you get the benefit of regrouping during the timeout.

honestly, once you're down to 10 seconds, call the timeout there too. you've already blown 20+ seconds trying to line up; there's no way you can feel confident in the operation there. i know giving up the ability to throw in the middle of the field is a steep price to pay, but securing the ability to run two plays is even more important

[fleet]

As Cowher said, as soon as the sack happened you take the timeout. You have 30 or so seconds left to hit one play you know will work for 7-10 yards to give Santos a chance to tie within the 50 yard range.

Another show debated how long it takes for the FG team to come out if the pass was left in the middle of the field, and the consensus was 15-20 seconds would have been plenty of time. Adding, every team practices that fire drill and if the special teams weren't ready for at 30 seconds, they could have been after a timeout with 20 second running clock.

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[Howling Mad]

As Cowher said, as soon as the sack happened you take the timeout. You have 30 or so seconds left to hit one play you know will work for 7-10 yards to give Santos a chance to tie within the 50 yard range.

Another show debated how long it takes for the FG team to come out if the pass was left in the middle of the field, and the consensus was 15-20 seconds would have been plenty of time. Adding, every team practices that fire drill and if the special teams weren't ready for at 30 seconds, they could have been after a timeout with 20 second running clock.

To me it feels a lot like hindsight. Now that I know how it turned out, of course I would have called a TO as soon as the sack happened. At the time of the play I thought "I wonder if they will call a TO or hurry-up?".
I'm just being honest, I was completely fine with the strategy.

Just to point this out. It is fair to expect the FG team to run out on the field and kick the ball in 15-20 seconds, but is unfair to expect the offense that is already out on the field to run a play in 20 seconds?

If the offense runs a play in 20 seconds instead of 25-26 seconds, you have enough time for a completion and a TO for a FG attempt.
It didn't happen.
Bears take an L
Flus gets the axe
Oh well....

Me and you, and everybody else on this board can play the hindsight game.

A former coach isn't doing that, he's telling you what he would have done in that situation and I have no doubt Bill Cowher is telling you his true instinctual reaction to that situation if he was on the sidelines for the Bears.

Me and you and everybody on this board can run through the situations of what could have happened from a novice POV, but a guy like Bill Cowher most likely would have calculated this possibility well before his team passed the 50 yard line.

If you call the timeout, you have one shot to gain 7-10 or more yards. If that doesn't work you kick the 56+ yarder and hope Santos has the wind of Aeolus behind him. It gives you a chance.

Once Eberflus saw his team wasn't hustling to lineup and were in complete disarray, you call the timeout between the 30-25 second mark, which still gives you one 7-10 yard shot + FG opportunity. Heck at 20 seconds ticking you call the timeout and dial up a sideline play, and if that still doesn't work you still have the 56+ yarder for Santos.

There were so many ways this could have gone wrong where Eberflus didn't look like a colossal doofus and the post game could be praising the Lions D for stepping up in the crunch.

The long pan shot on Eberflus with his jaw open while looking dumbfounded was absolutely perfect. Queue the firing, GG.

[dougthonus]

The consensus on Flus was that he “might” be an issue but that he wasn’t the biggest culprit. The Defense was playing well and the locker room hadn’t checked out on him. Therefore, it was possible-likely that he’d be retained, which he ultimately was. You’re right in that there were people that wanted him gone (I wasn’t dead serious one way or the other). But there was an even larger group that felt he would be retained and weren’t totally against it.

Let me rephrase it this way:

I think there were more people that were passionate about bringing in a new coach than passionate about keeping him, with a large number of people in neutral for the reason you said.

Either way, the idea of replacing him before the season started was not foreign or unreasonable for the reasons. There were definitely reasons it was a natural inflection point to consider a change. In hindsight, we clearly should have, in the moment, like you, I could have gone either way.

[dougthonus]

if caleb isn't "the guy" no coach is likely to save poles

If Caleb is a bust, I agree. If Caleb is a top 15 QB, then I think good coaching can be enough.

[MAQ]

Who said that?

I'll wait.....

I mean, you are.

Quote please...

Because I'm pretty sure I've said multiple times Flus now and over the past few weeks that Flus needed to go.

All I'm saying is that it is easy to point the finger at Flus and his historically poor time management, but for this last series, the offense actually crapped the bad on those last few plays.

The offense shat the bed and flus crapped his pants. There is no excuse for not using the timeout that anyone here (or in the local amd national media) that anyone is going to agree with.

[MAQ]

Wait, you wanted to call a TO to kick a 58 yard FG on 3rd down with over 30 seconds left?

You call TO to go over the game plan with your team, including your rookie QB who just got smashed. You can still do a short pass out of bounds to kick a FG or tell the team if it’s completed in bounds to hurry up and spike the ball.

Except it was like 3rd and 26 or something, so unless you pick up the first down, very unlikely, you can't spike the ball because it's 4th down.

Sack
Call the TO
Get the team back organized.
Give the offense the situation and plan...whatever you're gonna do on 3rd but comes up short? Get the FG unit on sideline and ready to rush out there. You make it on 3rd and a mile? You tell them to clock the ball.

This is what should have happened.

[CROBulls]

The consensus on Flus was that he “might” be an issue but that he wasn’t the biggest culprit. The Defense was playing well and the locker room hadn’t checked out on him. Therefore, it was possible-likely that he’d be retained, which he ultimately was. You’re right in that there were people that wanted him gone (I wasn’t dead serious one way or the other). But there was an even larger group that felt he would be retained and weren’t totally against it.

Let me rephrase it this way:

I think there were more people that were passionate about bringing in a new coach than passionate about keeping him, with a large number of people in neutral for the reason you said.

Either way, the idea of replacing him before the season started was not foreign or unreasonable for the reasons. There were definitely reasons it was a natural inflection point to consider a change. In hindsight, we clearly should have, in the moment, like you, I could have gone either way.

You need to understand that people knew one scenario was possible and it was that Eberflus is bad coach, you keep him, later you get afraid admitting you f it up by keeping him. All because you wanted to "break the cycle". Now not only you actually not "breaking the cycle", you are gonna repeat same cycle by giving Caleb before start of his sophomore year, his 3rd coach and 3rd playbook to learn. Doing same mistake they did with Trubisky and Fields.

I think everyone would in theory wanted if you even 1% unsure Flus is right guy, you fire him in offseason. And you pair young young 1st overall QB pick with fresh new coach. And growth them together. Flus was already coaching this year as he was on "hot seat" and was afraid of making mistakes which lead to winless Bears for 6th week in row.

[biggestbullsfan]

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[fleet]

I mean, you are.

Quote please...

Because I'm pretty sure I've said multiple times Flus now and over the past few weeks that Flus needed to go.

All I'm saying is that it is easy to point the finger at Flus and his historically poor time management, but for this last series, the offense actually crapped the bad on those last few plays.

The offense shat the bed and flus crapped his pants. There is no excuse for not using the timeout that anyone here (or in the local amd national media) that anyone is going to agree with.

Nor Jaylon Johnson. Assuming his beef with Flus was about the football game.

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