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The Chicago Bears had the most difficult of assignments on Thanksgiving Day. They had to go into Detroit against the hottest and best team in the NFL having lost five games in a row. When the Bears fell behind 16-0 in the first half, it appeared that it was just a matter of how big the deficit would be at the conclusion of the game. A comeback by the Bears against the Lions seemed like a ridiculous idea.
Jimmy Johnson on FOX: "In 70 years of coaching at all three levels, I've never seen dysfunction that cost a team an opportunity to win the game. … When Matt Eberflus saw that they were off track, he should've called timeout."
pic.twitter.com/So5itU0f9j https://t.co/0tLNKz6yun
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) November 28, 2024
But that's just what happened. Instead of taking the beating, the Bears rallied with three second-half touchdowns and they were in position to either tie the game and send it to overtime or actually win the game in the last minute. However, another late failure underlined by brutal clock management in the final seconds left them with yet another loss as the streaking Lions registered the 23-20 triumph.
Fox analyst and Hall of Fame head coach Jimmy Johnson could not believe the way Bears head coach Matt Eberflus handled the situation. He did not hesitate in his criticism of Eberflus.
“In 70 years of coaching at all three levels, I've never seen dysfunction that cost a team an opportunity to win the game,” Johnson said on the Fox postgame broadcast. “When Matt Eberflus saw that they were off track, he should've called timeout.”
Bears head coach was out of his depth
Eberflus appeared to be flummoxed on the sideline as the seconds ticked off the clock. He had a timeout in his pocket after quarterback Caleb Williams engineered the comeback for the Bears, but he was sacked at the Detroit 41 with 32 seconds remaining.
Instead of Eberflus calling a timeout, the clock ran down and the Bears would get off just one final play as the clock expired. Williams threw a pass to rookie Rome Odunze, but the pass was incomplete at the Detroit 5-yard line.
Johnson went on to explain that there were multiple ways for the Bears to work the end-of-game scenario. With a rookie quarterback, Johnson said he would have called the timeout. In other situations, both the coach and the quarterback would be able to make the call or it could be the responsibility of the offensive coordinator talking to him on his head set to recommend the timeout call.
Eberflus tried to defend his actions after the game. “We're at 36 seconds right there and our hope was, because it was third [down] going into fourth [down], that we would rerack that play at 18 seconds, throw it inbounds, get it in field goal range and then call a timeout,” Eberflus said.
It clearly did not work out and Eberflus and the Bears have lost six games in a row and are firmly in last place in the NFC North.
