Matt Eberflus doubling down on questionable late game decisions against the Commanders is making him look even worse
The Chicago Bears had a final drive worth forgetting against the Washington Commanders in Week 8 beyond the Hail Mary allowed to lose the game.The play right before the final touchdown was just as bad after the Bears allowed the Commanders to gain 13 yards to get into range for the final play by lining […]
The Chicago Bears had a final drive worth forgetting against the Washington Commanders in Week 8 beyond the Hail Mary allowed to lose the game.
The play right before the final touchdown was just as bad after the Bears allowed the Commanders to gain 13 yards to get into range for the final play by lining up all of the defenders deep and inside.
After the game, Bears head coach Matt Eberflus had a puzzling explanation for what the thought process was on that critical decision.
"Because you're defending touchdown, right? You're defending touchdown there. And them throwing the ball for 13 yards or 10 yards, whatever that is, doesn't really matter," Eberflus said after the loss. "It's always going to come down to that last play."
But it's more than that. After watching the play back this morning, you can see Eberflus trying to tell his defense to move up. Meanwhile, the Bears still had all three time outs and Eberflus could have easily burned one there if he wanted to get his defense properly aligned before the play that put the Commanders in a better position to attempt the Hail Mary on the final play.
Even after sleeping on the decision and the end result of the game, Eberflus still said that he's "not concerned" about that play in particular before the Hail Mary while on ESPN 1000.
Here's what Eberflus continued to say about the play while speaking with reporters on Monday back in Chicago:
"If you want to play sideline defense, they're going to convert to the Hail Mary and then you have to pick them up from the sideline," Eberflus explained.
So, the Bears were willing to let the Commanders attempt a 52-yard throw before letting them attempt a 65-yard throw? The reasoning just doesn't make sense here.
Unsurprisingly, not everyone on the team felt that same way about that play.
"He has his feelings about it. I think it’s a lot of different ways you can defend those plays. Me personally, I think that in that scenario possibly could have had the corners pressed up there because they just ran two out cuts and the play was called just to get a couple more yards to throw it down the field," team captain Kevin Byard explained on Monday. "If you had the guys pressed up, maybe they convert to verticals and they actually run the Hail Mary but even if they do that and our corners run with those guys, I’m not saying that [Jayden Daniels] doesn’t have the arm strength, but you think about the ball landing maybe 10 yards shorter and it may be a little different.
"I’m not saying that, we don’t know, looking back at it it’s always woulda, coulda, shoulda. But at the end of the day, things happened the way they happened. Could we have sent pressure? Maybe. He made the call and that’s what it was."
As for the Hail Mary itself, the Bears chose not to call a timeout before the snap because "everybody was in the correct position" even though cornerback Tyrique Stevenson was in the back of the endzone mocking fans before and after the snap.
These are all simply things Eberflus needs to be aware of if he wants to continue being a head coach at this level. He can't keep reacting three seconds behind and then acting like it's not a big deal after the game.
