Matt Eberflus may or may not have listened to criticism of him on social media after the loss to the Lions. He definitely heard it from cornerback Jaylon Johnson.
Johnson was frustrated after Eberflus’ time management cost the Bears in a 23-20 loss on Thanksgiving Day, a miscue that cost the Bears coach his job, and Johnson left nothing unsaid.
Johnson said he “didn’t really give a damn” that his postgame confrontation with Eberflus became public.
Eberflus had tried to put a positive spin on the baffling loss that saw the Bears get one play in the final 32 seconds, leaving a timeout unused.
“At some point, enough is enough, just as far as expressing frustrations,” Johnson said on 670 The Score on Monday. “But at the end of the day, I found out through ESPN of the firing first, and then received some phone calls, texts after that. But at the end of the day, this isn’t my first go-around, this is not my first rodeo with firings. This is a business.
“Guys get fired all the time – players, coach, GM. It happens. I don’t necessarily feel like I was just some major part that played a role in getting [Eberflus] fired. That’s not on me. But at the end of the day, there was frustration. There were words from myself that I expressed just from my frustration of losing. Part of what I said after the game is I’ve been losing for five years. So, I mean, I feel like a high-level player like myself, after a certain point, losing games how we’ve been losing games, someone has to express something. It was one of those situations where it just got to that point where you don’t remember everything that was said.”
The Bears have lost six in a row, with four of those losses going down to the final play. Eberflus went 14-32 in his three seasons, including 5-19 in one-score games.
“It was just based around frustrations of losing,” Johnson said. “That’s what triggered it. Just some certain things and seeing the way things had went these last few weeks. From the outside looking in, you can say it’s the last few weeks. For me, it’s the last five years of my damn career.
“I’m used to winning, used to playing the game at a high level, and I haven’t done that since I’ve been in a Bears uniform. For me, just expressing that frustration. It hasn’t been a lack of talent, especially this year. It’s not a lack of talent. It’s not any of those things where I can just say, ‘Well, we have a bad team, a bad roster.’ It’s just little things, certain situations, a certain way of losing that really hurts, and it just got to a point where I was fed up.”
