(670 The Score) Embattled Bears head coach Matt Eberflus remained on the job Friday morning, one day after his latest coaching miscue cost his team dearly in the final seconds of a 23-20 loss to the Lions.
Eberflus met with Bears management after the loss Thursday, which he called customary. He expects to meet with president Kevin Warren and general manager Ryan Poles again Friday afternoon as speculation about his job status swirls amid the Bears’ six-game losing streak.
"I'm confident that I'll be working on San Francisco and getting ready for that game,” Eberflus said Friday morning in a Zoom call.
“It has been a normal operation.”
The Bears (4-8) will visit the San Francisco against the 49ers (5-6) on Dec. 8 in their next game.
Thursday continued a trend of Eberflus mismanaging end-of-game situations. After Bears quarterback Caleb Williams was sacked at the Lions’ 41-yard line with 32 seconds remaining, Eberflus didn’t use his final timeout, instead letting the clock tick down. Operating slowly, the Bears managed to get just one more play off, an incompletion on a deep pass as the clock ticked to zeros. The Bears snapped the ball with six seconds left on the game clock.
The rookie Williams chose to change the play at the line of scrimmage as the clock was ticking, explaining he wasn’t comfortable calling the last timeout in the critical situation. Eberflus' hope was for the Bears to snap the ball quickly and pick up a few extra yards, then take the final timeout to set up a game-tying field-goal attempt.
Afterward, Eberflus shared his belief that the Bears “handled it the right way” at the end, which drew scrutiny from outside observers as well as inside the Bears locker room.
“I feel like we did enough as players to win the game,” Bears veteran receiver Keenan Allen said.
“You got to talk to the people who control those things. I hear the play, line up and run the play. I don’t know.”
Eberflus fell to 14-32 overall as the Bears’ head coach, including 5-19 in one-score games – the worst mark of any active head coach in games decided by eight points or fewer.
During the Bears’ six-game losing streak, they’ve lost four games in which they had an opportunity to win in the final minutes of regulation or overtime. Eberflus’ game management decisions have been called into question often during the losing streak.
During the Bears’ 18-15 loss to the Commanders on Oct. 27 in Washington, Eberflus directed his secondary to play well off the line of scrimmage on the penultimate play of the game. That gave the Commanders an easy 13-yard completion that set up quarterback Jayden Daniels’ 52-yard Hail Mary touchdown pass, a heave that likely wouldn’t have gotten to the end zone without the prior 13-yard gain.
The Bears then lost their following two games to the Cardinals and Patriots by a combined 36 points. On Nov. 12, Eberflus and the Bears fired offensive coordinator Shane Waldron after just nine games on the job.
Eight assistant coaches under Eberflus have departed in the past two seasons. Current Bears offensive coordinator Thomas Brown is the team's third offensive coordinator of the Eberflus era.
On Nov. 17, the Bears lost 20-19 to the rival Packers as kicker Cairo Santos’ game-winning 46-yard field-goal attempt was blocked on the final play of the game. Eberflus was widely criticized for allowing about 30 seconds to tick off the clock and settle for the 46-yard attempt rather than running another play to pick up more yardage in an effort to make the field-goal try easier.
The Bears then lost 30-27 in overtime to the Vikings last Sunday before dropping another heartbreaker to the Lions on Thursday in Detroit.
Bears players are off until Monday following the short-week game, which is the standard operating procedure as required by the collective bargaining agreement. Because of that, Eberflus hasn’t yet addressed the end of the loss to the Lions with the group at large.
Poles, Warren and chairman George McCaskey haven’t been made available to reporters during the Bears’ current six-game losing streak, and the team hasn’t issued any public vote of confidence in Eberflus.
Chris Emma covers the Bears, Chicago’s sports scene and more for 670TheScore.com. Follow him on Twitter @CEmma670.