Bears 8.0: Matt Eberflus FIRED

[TheSuzerain]

I'd draft Mason Graham if he's on the board In round 1.

[Hold That]

Will Campbell or Kelvin Banks Jr in round 1 if both are gone then take Ashton Jeanty since we can’t run the ball.

Our defense is too solid to be wasting a first round pick on it.

If we do go Jeanty then we need back to back OL in round two


Having a great running game is the reason why Lamar looks phenomenal, Jared Goff looks great and Hurts having a bounce back year. Also the tandem of Robinson and Ekler has done wonders for Jayden Daniels. Soon as Daniel Jones loses Barkley he’s out of a job. We need a every down back desperately. Harbaugh also has taken the ball out of Herbert hands and runs more which has done wonders for him as well. Bill Bilicheck himself says the bears two biggest weaknesses are OL and no running game. It’s evident every game we are relying on 30-40 passes from Caleb because we can’t establish the run. This is what wears down opposing defenses and keeps your offenses on the field. Making more 3rd and short situations for Caleb.

[NZB2323]

Don’t know if it’s true or not, but I saw someone say they heard on the radio that Poles wanted to fire Flus after the Patriots game but ownership wouldn’t allow it.

[panthermark]

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.

If saving a TO, the plan looks as if it may have been to run the draw, and follow that up with something that tried to get out of bounds. But you got sacked. Plan was ****. Burn the time out. Regroup and readjust.

I wondered about this:
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10145129-bears-caleb-williams-discusses-not-calling-timeout-before-final-play-in-lions-loss

There are a couple of key lines from that article that need to be called out:

According to Chris Emma of 670 The Score, Williams indicated he was not comfortable calling a timeout in that situation and left it up to the coaches, saying: "I'm trying to make a play for the Chicago Bears."

Per ESPN's Courtney Cronin, Williams added: "In that situation, I'm living with the call and letting coaches make that decision. … Maybe in the later years of my career [he may call a timeout himself], right now I get the call and I'm trying to lead my team to a win."

Ok, he is not comfortable calling a TO and will leave it up to the coaches.
But....

Since it was third down, the signal-caller had plenty of options coming out of the sack, including calling a timeout or even spiking the ball to set up a lengthy field goal.

Instead, Williams spent an inordinate amount of time at the line with the clock running, and he conceded after the game that he was changing the play.

The lack of urgency came back to haunt the Bears since there was only time for one play
by the time they got the ball snapped.

There you go.
As I said at the start of this. There were two choices. You either call your TO right at the sack, or you hurry up, run a quick play and call your TO to set up a FG.

I don't think there is anything wrong with running a quick play, but you do have to execute.
Just listen to the commentators in the link. They are like "snap the ball!, snap the ball!, snap ball!"

As much as Flus needed to go, he DID have a plan. It is easy to dump on Flus, but if the ball got snapped late BECAUSE the QB was changing the play....that is probably something that is uncomfortable, but should be discussed.

And beyond that, it was a compounded mistake by CW that still could have been salvaged.
The ball isn't snapped until the 6 second mark.
Look to the left side of the Field at the 4 second mark. Kmet breaking towards the side line on the 37. Moore was open right before that along the sideline. Fire that ball, and you might pick up a few yards with a second left on the clock.

Instead, CW throws the ball at the 2 second mark towards the endzone.
So instead of throwing a quick dart to the sidelines....he threw a bomb towards the endzone that ran out the clock.
He would have been better off throwing the ball into the dirt and trying a long FG or a hail mary on 4th down.


Flus should have been fired long before this, but if we are being honest...the CW messed that up by changing the play, taking too long to snap the ball, not throwing the quick pass to the sidelines, and not throwing the ball into the dirt.

He can't say he will "leave it up to the coaches" and "live with the call", but the change the play and not execute the coaches plan.

He is a rookie, so hopefully he will learn from this.

[Almost Retired]

I'd draft Mason Graham if he's on the board In round 1.

I like Graham too. But we need a legit Left Tackle. I'd draft Will Campbell. Offensive tackles are harder to come by which is why they go so high in the draft and cost so much to resign. Draft Campbell if he's on the board. Use the 2nd round picks for an EDGE and a O-Guard. Use cap money to get some additional veteran O-Line help. Draft either a Safety or a TE with the 3rd rounder. I love Gunnar Helm of Texas at TE but he'll go earlier in the 2nd round. You can have all the great receivers and tight ends you want but they do you no good if Caleb is getting crushed within 1.5 seconds of taking the snap due to his two Offensive tackles whiffing on their blocks. As much as Eberflus crapped in his pants at the end of that Lions game we really lost the game by giving up that sack at the end. It was inexcusable. A total breakdown of the O-Line protection.

[jnrjr79]

^^^Poles chose Flus out of the 3 choices. (Silvy says btw that at least 2 people on that search committee wanted Quinn). And Poles doubled down this offseason by retaining Eberflus, while we all knew Flus didn’t have the bones for the job. To try and shield Poles from his body of work, not for me. People are accountable. That’s healthy.

That’s all well and good, but we have to acknowledge that it’s a screwed-up process in the first place to have a search committee that has already interviewed the candidates before the GM is hired and then give him handcuffs by saying “you have to pick one of these three.”

[jnrjr79]

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.

Yes, you obviously do it right after. With 32 seconds, you can run a play anywhere on the field instead of just to the sideline, while having sufficient time to rush the FG unit out.

[jnrjr79]

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.

If you take the timeout with 32 seconds left, you have time to run a play and get the FG unit out there even if you don’t get out of bounds. I think everyone agrees a 58 yarder is beyond what we expect Santos to his, but 1) there was time to pick up more yards - hell just run the ball for 5, and 2) if you take the timeout and have a chance to go over your plan, if Cairo thinks he has a shot at 58, you can shift gears and let him try if you prefer that over trying to pick up yards.

What was the wrong move was trying to put it all on Caleb to rush there. When he realizes it’s not going to work out because the play call was no longer appropriate with how long it took the players to get set (because the play call was not a TD call, but an intermediate call), now he’s forced to audible at the line to something toward the end zone.

With a rookie QB, Eberflus chose chaos over having a chance to set a plan.

[Howling Mad]

You either call your TO right at the sack, or you hurry up, run a quick play and call your TO to set up a FG.

But neither happened and as soon as the HC saw the team couldn't run a quick play, the TO should have been called.

As much as Flus needed to go, he DID have a plan. It is easy to dump on Flus, but if the ball got snapped late BECAUSE the QB was changing the play....that is probably something that is uncomfortable, but should be discussed.

If your team isn't at the line to snap the ball, as a HC you call the time out. There were 10 seconds to do that before the point of no return. No TO was called.

And beyond that, it was a compounded mistake by CW that still could have been salvaged.
The ball isn't snapped until the 6 second mark.
Look to the left side of the Field at the 4 second mark. Kmet breaking towards the side line on the 37. Moore was open right before that along the sideline. Fire that ball, and you might pick up a few yards with a second left on the clock.

It should not have gotten this far. Any experienced HC at even the college level, would have called a timeout. I saw a post game show suggesting the same thing about a quick pass but there was no time left for that. You're not guaranteed your guy gets to the sidelines and that play wasn't a sideline specific play. You can say Caleb wasn't being very aware of the situation at that moment, but he didn't spike the ball in panic and he went to the end zone, which was the only thing he could do with 5,4,3,2 seconds remaining. I wouldn't go as far as saying it was a mistake for Caleb, but a very important learning experience. Moving forward, I hope he has a competent enough HC to call a TO in that situation or if presented again with that scenario he calls it himself.

If the TO was called, sure you have the sideline play, but you don't have it when the clock is ticking sub 5 seconds.

Instead, CW throws the ball at the 2 second mark towards the endzone.
So instead of throwing a quick dart to the sidelines....he threw a bomb towards the endzone that ran out the clock.
He would have been better off throwing the ball into the dirt and trying a long FG or a hail mary on 4th down.

So what you're saying is somehow stop the clock to give us more options. A TO would have done that.

Flus should have been fired long before this, but if we are being honest...the CW messed that up by changing the play, taking too long to snap the ball, not throwing the quick pass to the sidelines, and not throwing the ball into the dirt.

He can't say he will "leave it up to the coaches" and "live with the call", but the change the play and not execute the coaches plan.

He is a rookie, so hopefully he will learn from this.

As reported, the play Caleb was sacked on was supposed to be a QB draw/scrable for a running play. Flus in his press conference talked about snapping the ball at 18 seconds, which was mind boggling cause that completely ignores the sack and the backed up field position. His mind was still on the pre-determined set of plays he had going for the win. While the team was struggling to lineup and Caleb was hand motioning to change the play, time ticked past 18 seconds. A TO could have been called here. At 15 seconds you still have time to dial up a sideline-specific play and setup for a FG, whether its a completion or an incompletion on the previous play. None of that happened.

[jnrjr79]

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.

If saving a TO, the plan looks as if it may have been to run the draw, and follow that up with something that tried to get out of bounds. But you got sacked. Plan was ****. Burn the time out. Regroup and readjust.

I wondered about this:
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10145129-bears-caleb-williams-discusses-not-calling-timeout-before-final-play-in-lions-loss

There are a couple of key lines from that article that need to be called out:

According to Chris Emma of 670 The Score, Williams indicated he was not comfortable calling a timeout in that situation and left it up to the coaches, saying: "I'm trying to make a play for the Chicago Bears."

Per ESPN's Courtney Cronin, Williams added: "In that situation, I'm living with the call and letting coaches make that decision. … Maybe in the later years of my career [he may call a timeout himself], right now I get the call and I'm trying to lead my team to a win."

Ok, he is not comfortable calling a TO and will leave it up to the coaches.
But....

Since it was third down, the signal-caller had plenty of options coming out of the sack, including calling a timeout or even spiking the ball to set up a lengthy field goal.

Instead, Williams spent an inordinate amount of time at the line with the clock running, and he conceded after the game that he was changing the play.

The lack of urgency came back to haunt the Bears since there was only time for one play
by the time they got the ball snapped.

There you go.
As I said at the start of this. There were two choices. You either call your TO right at the sack, or you hurry up, run a quick play and call your TO to set up a FG.

I don't think there is anything wrong with running a quick play, but you do have to execute.
Just listen to the commentators in the link. They are like "snap the ball!, snap the ball!, snap ball!"

As much as Flus needed to go, he DID have a plan. It is easy to dump on Flus, but if the ball got snapped late BECAUSE the QB was changing the play....that is probably something that is uncomfortable, but should be discussed.

And beyond that, it was a compounded mistake by CW that still could have been salvaged.
The ball isn't snapped until the 6 second mark.
Look to the left side of the Field at the 4 second mark. Kmet breaking towards the side line on the 37. Moore was open right before that along the sideline. Fire that ball, and you might pick up a few yards with a second left on the clock.

Instead, CW throws the ball at the 2 second mark towards the endzone.
So instead of throwing a quick dart to the sidelines....he threw a bomb towards the endzone that ran out the clock.
He would have been better off throwing the ball into the dirt and trying a long FG or a hail mary on 4th down.


Flus should have been fired long before this, but if we are being honest...the CW messed that up by changing the play, taking too long to snap the ball, not throwing the quick pass to the sidelines, and not throwing the ball into the dirt.

He can't say he will "leave it up to the coaches" and "live with the call", but the change the play and not execute the coaches plan.

He is a rookie, so hopefully he will learn from this.

The problem with this line of thinking is that 1) you should have taken the timeout with 32 secs left, but 2) if you’re not going to do that, you have to burn it with 12-15 seconds left when you realize it’s taking too much time to get the offense set. #2 is worse, because now you can only run plays that go out of bounds, but it’s better than what happened. And it’s on Eberflus to make those calls.

Caleb had to change the play at the line because Eberflus screwed up but not burning the timeout, and then when the players took too long to set, the playcall that was in would no longer work.

[nitetrain8603]

If saving a TO, the plan looks as if it may have been to run the draw, and follow that up with something that tried to get out of bounds. But you got sacked. Plan was ****. Burn the time out. Regroup and readjust.

I wondered about this:
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10145129-bears-caleb-williams-discusses-not-calling-timeout-before-final-play-in-lions-loss

There are a couple of key lines from that article that need to be called out:

According to Chris Emma of 670 The Score, Williams indicated he was not comfortable calling a timeout in that situation and left it up to the coaches, saying: "I'm trying to make a play for the Chicago Bears."

Per ESPN's Courtney Cronin, Williams added: "In that situation, I'm living with the call and letting coaches make that decision. … Maybe in the later years of my career [he may call a timeout himself], right now I get the call and I'm trying to lead my team to a win."

Ok, he is not comfortable calling a TO and will leave it up to the coaches.
But....

Since it was third down, the signal-caller had plenty of options coming out of the sack, including calling a timeout or even spiking the ball to set up a lengthy field goal.

Instead, Williams spent an inordinate amount of time at the line with the clock running, and he conceded after the game that he was changing the play.

The lack of urgency came back to haunt the Bears since there was only time for one play
by the time they got the ball snapped.

There you go.
As I said at the start of this. There were two choices. You either call your TO right at the sack, or you hurry up, run a quick play and call your TO to set up a FG.

I don't think there is anything wrong with running a quick play, but you do have to execute.
Just listen to the commentators in the link. They are like "snap the ball!, snap the ball!, snap ball!"

As much as Flus needed to go, he DID have a plan. It is easy to dump on Flus, but if the ball got snapped late BECAUSE the QB was changing the play....that is probably something that is uncomfortable, but should be discussed.

And beyond that, it was a compounded mistake by CW that still could have been salvaged.
The ball isn't snapped until the 6 second mark.
Look to the left side of the Field at the 4 second mark. Kmet breaking towards the side line on the 37. Moore was open right before that along the sideline. Fire that ball, and you might pick up a few yards with a second left on the clock.

Instead, CW throws the ball at the 2 second mark towards the endzone.
So instead of throwing a quick dart to the sidelines....he threw a bomb towards the endzone that ran out the clock.
He would have been better off throwing the ball into the dirt and trying a long FG or a hail mary on 4th down.


Flus should have been fired long before this, but if we are being honest...the CW messed that up by changing the play, taking too long to snap the ball, not throwing the quick pass to the sidelines, and not throwing the ball into the dirt.

He can't say he will "leave it up to the coaches" and "live with the call", but the change the play and not execute the coaches plan.

He is a rookie, so hopefully he will learn from this.

The problem with this line of thinking is that 1) you should have taken the timeout with 32 secs left, but 2) if you’re not going to do that, you have to burn it with 12-15 seconds left when you realize it’s taking too much time to get the offense set. #2 is worse, because now you can only run plays that go out of bounds, but it’s better than what happened. And it’s on Eberflus to make those calls.

Caleb had to change the play at the line because Eberflus screwed up but not burning the timeout, and then when the players took too long to set, the playcall that was in would no longer work.

It depends on if Eberflus is aware that Caleb is not comfortable taking a TO himself. IMO, he probably has been taught that at some level. With that stated, once it got to 28 seconds, and there was no urgency, Flus should've called timeout.

And again, I don't know if I like my rookie QB shouldering so much responsibility and being able to change plays at the line as much as he does. Not in his first year at least.

With that stated, I'm willing to chalk that up to Caleb being a rookie QB, but Flus did need to go. I just worry about him not having to talk to Kerry Joseph instead of TB directly.

[dice]

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.

yes. by "the guy" i mean the long-term QB solution for the bears. i've always put the hurdle at cutler. for fields that would have been enough, for williams it would of course require more to satiate our hopes

[dice]

You either call your TO right at the sack, or you hurry up, run a quick play and call your TO to set up a FG.

But neither happened and as soon as the HC saw the team couldn't run a quick play, the TO should have been called.

As much as Flus needed to go, he DID have a plan. It is easy to dump on Flus, but if the ball got snapped late BECAUSE the QB was changing the play....that is probably something that is uncomfortable, but should be discussed.

If your team isn't at the line to snap the ball, as a HC you call the time out. There were 10 seconds to do that before the point of no return. No TO was called.

And beyond that, it was a compounded mistake by CW that still could have been salvaged.
The ball isn't snapped until the 6 second mark.
Look to the left side of the Field at the 4 second mark. Kmet breaking towards the side line on the 37. Moore was open right before that along the sideline. Fire that ball, and you might pick up a few yards with a second left on the clock.

It should not have gotten this far. Any experienced HC at even the college level, would have called a timeout. I saw a post game show suggesting the same thing about a quick pass but there was no time left for that. You're not guaranteed your guy gets to the sidelines and that play wasn't a sideline specific play. You can say Caleb wasn't being very aware of the situation at that moment, but he didn't spike the ball in panic and he went to the end zone, which was the only thing he could do with 5,4,3,2 seconds remaining. I wouldn't go as far as saying it was a mistake for Caleb, but a very important learning experience. Moving forward, I hope he has a competent enough HC to call a TO in that situation or if presented again with that scenario he calls it himself.

If the TO was called, sure you have the sideline play, but you don't have it when the clock is ticking sub 5 seconds.

Instead, CW throws the ball at the 2 second mark towards the endzone.
So instead of throwing a quick dart to the sidelines....he threw a bomb towards the endzone that ran out the clock.
He would have been better off throwing the ball into the dirt and trying a long FG or a hail mary on 4th down.

So what you're saying is somehow stop the clock to give us more options. A TO would have done that.

Flus should have been fired long before this, but if we are being honest...the CW messed that up by changing the play, taking too long to snap the ball, not throwing the quick pass to the sidelines, and not throwing the ball into the dirt.

He can't say he will "leave it up to the coaches" and "live with the call", but the change the play and not execute the coaches plan.

He is a rookie, so hopefully he will learn from this.

As reported, the play Caleb was sacked on was supposed to be a QB draw/scrable for a running play. Flus in his press conference talked about snapping the ball at 18 seconds, which was mind boggling cause that completely ignores the sack and the backed up field position. His mind was still on the pre-determined set of plays he had going for the win. While the team was struggling to lineup and Caleb was hand motioning to change the play, time ticked past 18 seconds. A TO could have been called here. At 15 seconds you still have time to dial up a sideline-specific play and setup for a FG, whether its a completion or an incompletion on the previous play. None of that happened.

w/ 1 TO the only real options are a quick TO after the sack or doing what flus chose. a TO w/ much less than 30 secs allows lions to take away sideline throws

w/o the quick TO, caleb MUST get off a play by about the 10 sec mark. ANY PLAY THAT CAN PICK UP A FEW YARDS OR MORE! even a handoff is better than what we got

[dice]

^^^Poles chose Flus out of the 3 choices. (Silvy says btw that at least 2 people on that search committee wanted Quinn). And Poles doubled down this offseason by retaining Eberflus, while we all knew Flus didn’t have the bones for the job. To try and shield Poles from his body of work, not for me. People are accountable. That’s healthy.

That’s all well and good, but we have to acknowledge that it’s a screwed-up process in the first place to have a search committee that has already interviewed the candidates before the GM is hired and then give him handcuffs by saying “you have to pick one of these three.”

do we know he wasn't permitted to bring in other candidates? who else would have been good?

in theory it's good to get the process started ASAP, but of course that can create an awkward situation if the new GM doesn't like the work that has been done or wanted to handle it all himself

[dice]

If anybody noticed, the Raiders showed another unusual way to screw up a potential last second FG attempt. Can't say I'd ever seen that one before.

Some D-linemen on display today.... 11:00 am Michigan (Graham and Grant), Ohio St (Williams), Tenn (Pearce), 2:30 pm Penn St (Carter) and 7:30 pm Texas A&M (Scourton)

bears are the anti-chiefs

[dice]

If anybody noticed, the Raiders showed another unusual way to screw up a potential last second FG attempt. Can't say I'd ever seen that one before.

Some D-linemen on display today.... 11:00 am Michigan (Graham and Grant), Ohio St (Williams), Tenn (Pearce), 2:30 pm Penn St (Carter) and 7:30 pm Texas A&M (Scourton)

Don't want a lineman. Want all OL as that presents your biggest ROI

Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

safeties and inside linebackers do

[panthermark]

If saving a TO, the plan looks as if it may have been to run the draw, and follow that up with something that tried to get out of bounds. But you got sacked. Plan was ****. Burn the time out. Regroup and readjust.

I wondered about this:
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10145129-bears-caleb-williams-discusses-not-calling-timeout-before-final-play-in-lions-loss

There are a couple of key lines from that article that need to be called out:

According to Chris Emma of 670 The Score, Williams indicated he was not comfortable calling a timeout in that situation and left it up to the coaches, saying: "I'm trying to make a play for the Chicago Bears."

Per ESPN's Courtney Cronin, Williams added: "In that situation, I'm living with the call and letting coaches make that decision. … Maybe in the later years of my career [he may call a timeout himself], right now I get the call and I'm trying to lead my team to a win."

Ok, he is not comfortable calling a TO and will leave it up to the coaches.
But....

Since it was third down, the signal-caller had plenty of options coming out of the sack, including calling a timeout or even spiking the ball to set up a lengthy field goal.

Instead, Williams spent an inordinate amount of time at the line with the clock running, and he conceded after the game that he was changing the play.

The lack of urgency came back to haunt the Bears since there was only time for one play
by the time they got the ball snapped.

There you go.
As I said at the start of this. There were two choices. You either call your TO right at the sack, or you hurry up, run a quick play and call your TO to set up a FG.

I don't think there is anything wrong with running a quick play, but you do have to execute.
Just listen to the commentators in the link. They are like "snap the ball!, snap the ball!, snap ball!"

As much as Flus needed to go, he DID have a plan. It is easy to dump on Flus, but if the ball got snapped late BECAUSE the QB was changing the play....that is probably something that is uncomfortable, but should be discussed.

And beyond that, it was a compounded mistake by CW that still could have been salvaged.
The ball isn't snapped until the 6 second mark.
Look to the left side of the Field at the 4 second mark. Kmet breaking towards the side line on the 37. Moore was open right before that along the sideline. Fire that ball, and you might pick up a few yards with a second left on the clock.

Instead, CW throws the ball at the 2 second mark towards the endzone.
So instead of throwing a quick dart to the sidelines....he threw a bomb towards the endzone that ran out the clock.
He would have been better off throwing the ball into the dirt and trying a long FG or a hail mary on 4th down.


Flus should have been fired long before this, but if we are being honest...the CW messed that up by changing the play, taking too long to snap the ball, not throwing the quick pass to the sidelines, and not throwing the ball into the dirt.

He can't say he will "leave it up to the coaches" and "live with the call", but the change the play and not execute the coaches plan.

He is a rookie, so hopefully he will learn from this.

The problem with this line of thinking is that 1) you should have taken the timeout with 32 secs left, but 2) if you’re not going to do that, you have to burn it with 12-15 seconds left when you realize it’s taking too much time to get the offense set. #2 is worse, because now you can only run plays that go out of bounds, but it’s better than what happened. And it’s on Eberflus to make those calls.

Caleb had to change the play at the line because Eberflus screwed up but not burning the timeout, and then when the players took too long to set, the playcall that was in would no longer work.

The problem with that line of thinking is that you are using hindsight.
Now that we know the ball wasn't snapped until 6 seconds, and thrown at 2 seconds, pretty much anything else would have been better.

But at the 15 second marks in real time, the only person that knew when the ball would be snapped was CW, and I'm pretty sure no one would have expected him to take another 9 seconds to snap the ball.

You don't want to call a time-out at 13 seconds if he is snapping the ball at 11 seconds.

Also, why do think think Caleb had to change to play because Flus screwed up by not calling a time-out.
Caleb should have NOT changed the play and should have ran what was called, when it was called.....just like he said.
CW changing the play is what took EXTRA time.

[jnrjr79]

I wondered about this:
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10145129-bears-caleb-williams-discusses-not-calling-timeout-before-final-play-in-lions-loss

There are a couple of key lines from that article that need to be called out:

Ok, he is not comfortable calling a TO and will leave it up to the coaches.
But....



There you go.
As I said at the start of this. There were two choices. You either call your TO right at the sack, or you hurry up, run a quick play and call your TO to set up a FG.

I don't think there is anything wrong with running a quick play, but you do have to execute.
Just listen to the commentators in the link. They are like "snap the ball!, snap the ball!, snap ball!"

As much as Flus needed to go, he DID have a plan. It is easy to dump on Flus, but if the ball got snapped late BECAUSE the QB was changing the play....that is probably something that is uncomfortable, but should be discussed.

And beyond that, it was a compounded mistake by CW that still could have been salvaged.
The ball isn't snapped until the 6 second mark.
Look to the left side of the Field at the 4 second mark. Kmet breaking towards the side line on the 37. Moore was open right before that along the sideline. Fire that ball, and you might pick up a few yards with a second left on the clock.

Instead, CW throws the ball at the 2 second mark towards the endzone.
So instead of throwing a quick dart to the sidelines....he threw a bomb towards the endzone that ran out the clock.
He would have been better off throwing the ball into the dirt and trying a long FG or a hail mary on 4th down.


Flus should have been fired long before this, but if we are being honest...the CW messed that up by changing the play, taking too long to snap the ball, not throwing the quick pass to the sidelines, and not throwing the ball into the dirt.

He can't say he will "leave it up to the coaches" and "live with the call", but the change the play and not execute the coaches plan.

He is a rookie, so hopefully he will learn from this.

The problem with this line of thinking is that 1) you should have taken the timeout with 32 secs left, but 2) if you’re not going to do that, you have to burn it with 12-15 seconds left when you realize it’s taking too much time to get the offense set. #2 is worse, because now you can only run plays that go out of bounds, but it’s better than what happened. And it’s on Eberflus to make those calls.

Caleb had to change the play at the line because Eberflus screwed up but not burning the timeout, and then when the players took too long to set, the playcall that was in would no longer work.

The problem with that line of thinking is that you are using hindsight.
Now that we know the ball wasn't snapped until 6 seconds, and thrown at 2 seconds, pretty much anything else would have been better.

But at the 15 second marks in real time, the only person that knew when the ball would be snapped was CW, and I'm pretty sure no one would have expected him to take another 9 seconds to snap the ball.

You don't want to call a time-out at 13 seconds if he is snapping the ball at 11 seconds.

Also, why do think think Caleb had to change to play because Flus screwed up by not calling a time-out.
Caleb should have NOT changed the play and should have ran what was called, when it was called.....just like he said.
CW changing the play is what took EXTRA time.

No, this is silly. Flus should have called it with 32 left, but if he was going to go hurry-up, then there obviously needs to be a drop-dead point on the clock (15 secs, 12 secs, whatever) where he calls the timeout and resets to ensure they can run 2 plays.

[Dresden]

^^^Poles chose Flus out of the 3 choices. (Silvy says btw that at least 2 people on that search committee wanted Quinn). And Poles doubled down this offseason by retaining Eberflus, while we all knew Flus didn’t have the bones for the job. To try and shield Poles from his body of work, not for me. People are accountable. That’s healthy.

That’s all well and good, but we have to acknowledge that it’s a screwed-up process in the first place to have a search committee that has already interviewed the candidates before the GM is hired and then give him handcuffs by saying “you have to pick one of these three.”

I take exception to the "we all knew he didn't have the bones for the job". There was a lot of optimism with how the season ended (other than the loss to GB). Our defense was I believe the best in the league ever since adding Sweat. We had the #1 pick in a draft that was strong at QB. We were going to get a new OC and upgrade the line.

I think the thought process was "Eberflus has gotten the team to the point where all it needs is a better offense and it will be really good, and help is on the way in that area. Let's not switch HC's just because the timing makes sense, when we may have a good one in Eberflus. That could be taking a step backward".

So with fingers crossed, they kept him. I dont recall a lot of people screaming that it was a mistake. I think the general feeling was one of guarded optimism, mixed with some trepidation. It was probably a 60/40 call. Now that it's gone south, everyone is making it sound like Poles was on an island in his decision to keep Eberflus. I don't think that was the case at all. I don't even think any of the beat writers came out as being strongly against the decision. To lay this all on Poles now like it was a monumental failure on his part is revisionist history.

[jnrjr79]

^^^Poles chose Flus out of the 3 choices. (Silvy says btw that at least 2 people on that search committee wanted Quinn). And Poles doubled down this offseason by retaining Eberflus, while we all knew Flus didn’t have the bones for the job. To try and shield Poles from his body of work, not for me. People are accountable. That’s healthy.

That’s all well and good, but we have to acknowledge that it’s a screwed-up process in the first place to have a search committee that has already interviewed the candidates before the GM is hired and then give him handcuffs by saying “you have to pick one of these three.”

I take exception to the "we all knew he didn't have the bones for the job". There was a lot of optimism with how the season ended (other than the loss to GB). Our defense was I believe the best in the league ever since adding Sweat. We had the #1 pick in a draft that was strong at QB. We were going to get a new OC and upgrade the line.

I think the thought process was "Eberflus has gotten the team to the point where all it needs is a better offense and it will be really good, and help is on the way in that area. Let's not switch HC's just because the timing makes sense, when we may have a good one in Eberflus. That could be taking a step backward".

So with fingers crossed, they kept him. I dont recall a lot of people screaming that it was a mistake. I think the general feeling was one of guarded optimism, mixed with some trepidation. It was probably a 60/40 call. Now that it's gone south, everyone is making it sound like Poles was on an island in his decision to keep Eberflus. I don't think that was the case at all. I don't even think any of the beat writers came out as being strongly against the decision. To lay this all on Poles now like it was a monumental failure on his part is revisionist history.

I agree with much of this, but don’t see how it’s responsive to anything I wrote. I understand the decision to hang onto Eberflus this offseason. It turned out to be a mistake, but I agree there was no consensus on what the right choice would be and people arguing both sides of it credibly enough. My post above was about how there is some defense to be made of Poles for the initial hire, when Bill Polian and the remainder of the search committee did the initial vetting and then only presented Poles with three options.

I do not agree that anyone is saying “Poles was on an island in his decision to keep Eberflus.” There are lots of people saying they preferred otherwise (and I think that’s true, particularly when Harbaugh was available), but I am not arguing, and I don’t think anyone else is, that the media/fans/etc. were all adamant that hanging onto Flus would be some obvious blunder.

The rationale to keep Flus is obvious enough: he was here, his team finished the season strong and he had the defense playing fantastic ball in the latter half of the season, and that you could deal with the offense by bringing in an OC that would be a good fit for Caleb. But the combination of the OC not being up to the task and Flus making a series of coaching blunders in recent weeks was understandably enough to seal his fate.

The one upside here is the Bears at least get a free preview of Thomas Brown as a candidate. Maybe they’ll have embarrassingly failed their way into finding the right guy.