Matt Eberflus last Bears chance turned into a locker room st show

The Bears’ firing of Matt Eberflus was as painful internally as it looked from the outside.In a scathing ESPN report detailing the moments following the embarrassing ending sequence in the Bears’ Thanksgiving Day loss to the Lions, the now-fired coach only consoled his team for “seconds” before chaos broke out.One team source told the website that the postgame scene was a “s–t show.” The volatile locker room, headlined by second-team All-Pro cornerback Jaylon Johnson, interrupted Eberflus’ tone-deaf postgame speech about coming up short.“There was frustration,” Johnson told WSCR radio in Chicago on Monday.

“There was words from myself that I expressed just from my frustration from losing.”After Johnson’s interruption, Eberflus reportedly cut his message short and walked off.“You only want to hear it so much,” tight end Cole Kmet said.

“Coach is going to say what he’s going to say.”Chicago had driven the ball down the field to the Detroit 25 with 56 seconds left, primed to at least kick a game-tying field goal and perhaps win the game outright with a touchdown.A 10-yard penalty followed by rookie quarterback Caleb Williams taking a sack would push them back to the 42-yard line.When Williams took the sack, they had one timeout with 32 seconds remaining on third down.

Eberflus bizarrely allowed the time to run off and the play did not start until five seconds remained.A deep incompletion to Rome Odunze would end the game and seal the Bears’ sixth straight loss.After the game, general manager Ryan Poles and team president Kevin Warren stuck around in the locker room but left after some encouraging words to players.The next day, Eberflus was allowed to speak with the media for his usual day-after-game media availability, where the Bears coach expressed confidence that he would not be fired and that the end-of-game sequence was handled “the right way.”The Zoom meeting with the media had “zero” to do with the firing, as ...