NEWSLETTER
As someone who expects the Chicago Bears to take the most chaotic path possible, it didn’t surprise me that the team announced Matt Eberflus’ firing about two hours after he hosted a press conference telling reporters that he was confident that he would be coaching the team in its Week 14 matchup against the San Francisco 49ers.
BEARS PRESS CONFERENCES: President and GM Speak | So Does The Interim Head Coach
But that didn’t mean I wasn’t curious to hear a further explanation from the powers that be at Halas Hall. After all, the timing was odd and could be seen as unsightly by outsiders looking in from around the league. And as far as I’m concerned, it would behoove the Bears to clean up their perception as they embark on finding a new head coach.
With that being said, damage control was fully underway on Monday at Halas Hall.
Bears President Kevin Warren explains the timing of Matt Eberflus’ firing
The Bears letting Matt Eberflus meet with the media hours before his firing didn’t go over well in some circles. And understandably so, I might add.
Bears President Kevin Warren said the team could have done better when it came to Eberflus’ dismissal. This is what he had to say in response to a question about the situation and the perception the team might have to deal with in the wake of what happened (as transcribed by Jori Epstein of Yahoo Sports):
“In retrospect, could we have done it better? Absolutely and I’ll be the first one to raise my hand yes. But during his press conference and even a couple hours later, we had not reached a decision. On the flip side of it, is that something that was important to us is that once we reached the decision we wanted to make sure to talk to Matt about that so he could have the respect to be able to call his family.
It happens around the league a lot where a head coach will find out he’s terminated and he finds out before he’s told from the organization. That’s something we promised we were not going to do. So in retrospect could we have done better? Yes. But we were trying to be respectful and we did not know our decision when he started his press conference.”
I suppose this ordeal could have been avoided by pushing back Eberflus’ scheduled press conference. But the Bears reportedly felt that might hint that the team had decided to fire Eberflus (even though that call was still hanging in the balance).
On the one hand, I don’t want to move on because I am taking this situation lightly because that would be rude. But on the other hand, I think I have spilled as much virtual ink as I possibly could on this situation. In the end, there is a part of me that Eberflus was the first to know about his dismissal. Imagine getting fired and learning about it from an Ian Rapoport or Adam Schefter push notification. Better yet, imagine if a family member caught wind of it first. No thanks.
In the end, this whole situation reminds me that there is no easy way to do something so obvious if you want to do it “the right way.” I am not sure there was a “right way” to fire a coach on a holiday weekend. There might not have been a path that wouldn’t have bothered anyone. But at this point, what is done is already over. The time for us to move on is here. And while Kevin Warren’s words might not fully scratch the itch, they are better than nothing.
For the entire Kevin Warren and Ryan Poles press conference, you can watch the video below:
