The timeline invites speculation that former Bears coach Matt Eberflus said something during his Friday morning press conference that contributed to the decision to fire him.
Courtney Cronin of ESPN.com reports that the press conference had “zero” to do with the decision to move on from Eberflus.
The reality is that, while Eberflus likely said nothing to cook a goose that wasn’t already fully cooked, he possibly could have said something to persuade someone in the meeting between chairman George McCaskey, CEO Kevin Warren, and G.M. Ryan Poles to give him another chance.
It would have taken a lot. It might have been damn near impossible. The damage done by the mishandling of the closing seconds of the Thanksgiving Day game seemed irreversible, as evidenced by the frustrations articulated publicly and privately by multiple players.
The post-game team meeting reportedly lasted a matter of “seconds.” One source told Cronin it was a “shit show.”
No, the Thanksgiving fiasco sealed Eberflus’s fate. The press conference changed nothing.
Still, that doesn’t change the fact that the press conference shouldn’t have happened. The scheduled commencement of the 10:00 a.m. ET media availability should have been regarded as the hard deadline for making a decision on Eberflus, if they didn’t want to send an ominous message by postponing it.
