(670 The Score) Shortly after he saw news reports that the Bears had fired head coach Matt Eberflus on Friday, receiver DJ Moore received a phone call.
It was from Bears general manager Ryan Poles, who explained the thought process in firing Eberflus before laying out the vision for what he wanted in the team’s next leader.
“He just basically told me what had already got out in the media before he called me, but he was just like, ‘We’re going to get this thing turned around – a leader of men is going to be in here for the next coach,’” Moore said of Poles’ message to him.
Moore wasn’t surprised at all that Eberflus was fired as the Bears are mired in a six-game losing streak and sitting at 4-8. Moore called Eberflus’ failure to call a timeout in the final half-minute of the Bears’ 23-20 loss to the Lions on Thursday “the last straw.” Instead of calling the Bears’ last timeout shortly after quarterback Caleb Williams was sacked at the Lions’ 41-yard line with 32 seconds left, Eberflus saved it, hoping to quickly get another play in and then use it to set up a game-tying field-goal attempt. Instead, the slow-moving Bears got just one more play off, an incompletion as time expired.
"The way the season was going, you kind of figured that was going to happen,” Moore said of Eberflus’ dismissal.
The Bears have tabbed offensive coordinator Thomas Brown to be their interim head coach, giving him five games to audition for the full-time job.
"He brings the juice every day,” Moore said. “He gets everybody going. His energy is really felt by everybody – offense, defense and special teams. I look forward to seeing how he leads the team these last few weeks and then go from there.”