Chicago Bears head coach Matt Eberflus has shown many times that he is in over his head as a head coach. There have been so many examples of that yet the team won’t fire him.
It is tough being a Chicago Bears fan. Once again, we see the team reeling. They currently have a four-game losing streak and have created a number of different ways of losing. They lost on a Hail Mary. They lost despite having a late-game lead. They lost on a blocked field goal attempt. You name a way and the Bears have done it.
We see how other teams experience heartbreak yet bounce back and win again. The Minnesota Vikings, the Chicago Bears’ next opponent, started the season 5-0. Then they had two tough losses consecutively. Now, Bears fans would expect the team to continue the streak. Instead, the Vikings are now on a three-game winning streak.
The leader of this latest disappointment is Matt Eberflus. In Chicago he is about as popular as a hot dog with ketchup on it. Sure, there are a few fans who still defend him. However, the vast majority of Chicago Bears fans are sick and tired of his incompetence causing so many losses.
Time and again we are given reasons why Eberflus is in over his head. He may be a nice guy but sometimes nice guys aren’t enough to handle the Type-A personalities in a locker room. We saw the same thing happen with Shane Waldron, the recently fired Chicago Bears offensive coordinator.
© Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images
Despite struggling in getting his offensive system to flow, nearly all the offensive players acknowledged that Waldron was a great guy. Perhaps he was too great. The players wanted a stronger coach who could hold them more accountable than Waldron did.
Let’s go over all the amazing reasons why Eberflus should not go forward as the Chicago Bears head coach.
Eberflus’ winning percentage is among the worst in NFL history
© Matt Marton-Imagn Images
The Chicago Bears have been one of the greatest franchises in NFL history. They have had some of the greatest players in the league. However, they have also had some of the worst head coaches in league history.
Abe Gibron, who coached the Chicago Bears for 42 games between 1972-1974, has the worst winning percentage in franchise history. He had a record of 11-30-1 for a winning percentage of .268 in his career. That would be the fifth worst winning percentage in NFL history had he made it to 50 games.
Eberflus’ record is 14-30 after 44 games. That is a paltry .318 winning percentage. That would put him at 14th worst all-time. Knowing how the Chicago Bears ownership operates, Eberflus will reach that 50-game threshold. In their next six games, Chicago’s opponents have a winning percentage of .733. That gives them the toughest schedule in that period.
The Bears could possibly lose those six games. If they do, Eberflus’ winning percentage would drop to .280, which would be the seventh worst all-time among head coaches.
That is rough. Chicago Bears fans deserve much better.
The team cannot stop losing multiple games under Eberflus
© Daniel Bartel-Imagn Images
As mentioned earlier, other teams can lose a game or two in heartbreaking fashion and still right things and get on the right track. In the 44 games as head coach, the Chicago Bears have had losing streaks of 3, 4, and 14 consecutive games. The 14-game losing streak is a franchise record.
That’s 21 losses that were consecutive out of a total of 44. Throw in two two-game losing streaks and that makes more than half their games have been involved in losing streaks. A team cannot get moving if they have to constantly try to end losing streaks. Eberflus and his staff have been unable to stem the flow of losses.
Chicago Bears Nation is desperate to have some winning streaks. Earlier this season, the team went on a three-game winning streak. You could feel how much hope the fans had. They had thoughts of a playoff run by their team. Just a small run like that got their juices flowing. Imagine if the team could consistently win games.
Eberflus’ team cannot finish games
© Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images
One of the most frustrating aspects of the Chicago Bears’ losing is how they lose games they should win. It is not games against weak teams they should beat (they have had plenty of those, though), however. It is games in which they were leading late in games. Somehow things happened and they lost games they should have won.
In the Eberflus era, the Chicago Bears lost five games in which they had a 90 percent chance of winning. For example, in Week 4 of the 2023 season, Chicago had a 28-7 lead over the Denver Broncos in the third quarter. The lead was 28-14 with 9:43 left in the game. Then Denver scored 17 points in 7:52 to win the game 31-28.
Against the hated Green Bay Packers last week, the Chicago Bears had a 71.3 percent chance of winning the game. With Eberflus at the helm, no lead is safe for the Bears.
The Chicago Bears had a 71.3% chance to win during yesterday’s game vs. the Packers and lost.
Over the last three seasons, they’ve blown 5 leads with a 90% or higher chance of winning.
The odds of losing all six of those games are 1 in 68,000,000. Yes, 1 in 68 million 😳
(h/t… pic.twitter.com/mSm7KepP6J
— DraftKings (@DraftKings) November 18, 2024
As you could see from the quote above, the odds of what happened was 1 in 68 million. Of all of the unlikely things to happen to the Chicago Bears, those had to be the ones they accomplish?
Eberflus’ decisions leave a lot to be desired
© David Banks-Imagn Images
The game plan under Eberflus has been suspect as well. Eberflus has made a lot of decisions that were head-scratchers. In the Washington game, the Chicago Bears lost a chance at scoring a touchdown or field goal because of a bad call.
The Bears had the ball inside Washington’s five. During the season, having offensive lineman Doug Kramer play fullback so he could be the lead blocker for running backs D’Andre Swift or Roschon Johnson. Instead of doing what was working, the Bears decided to give the ball to Kramer. Of course, being a lineman with stones for hands, Kramer fumbled the ball away.
On the opposite end, there have been times when the Chicago Bears had short-yardage situations and instead of using a big player to help blow open a hole to gain inches, like they do now with Kramer, the Bears got too cute. Sometimes they did a direct snap to tight end Cole Kmet or had the quarterback try to run it in from the shotgun formation.
The Bears’ late-game decisions has also been bad. Against the Packers, it seemed that once the offense got into kicker Cairo Santos‘ range, it shut down. It was just a matter of where to place the ball and not trying to get even closer for Santos. Being pretty far away, Santos had to kick low. That gave the Packers’ linemen an opportunity to block the kick. Of course, they were able to do it and win the game.
Eberflus is not the man to lead the Chicago Bears into a winning team. he has dealt with two young quarterbacks picked and number one and eleven in the drafts and those players have not been able to play consistently good football.
This was supposed to be the year the team at least competed better and challenged for a playoff spot. That does not look like it will happen now. The 2024 season has deteriorated and now is another in a long list of wasted hope. For that, Matt Eberflus has to be fired as quickly as possible.
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