Matt Eberflus’s botched final Thanksgiving play invented a new way for the Bears to lose

Matt Eberflus showed why the Bears shouldn’t be thankful for him.

At this point, running down exactly how Matt Eberflus continues to blow it for the Chicago Bears feels like an exhaustive task. It almost seems like he’s inventing ways for the Bears to lose, and after heroic Caleb Williams performances, no less.

But, oh my goodness, the way Eberflus threw away another possible Bears victory on Thanksgiving against the Detroit Lions might take the cake for all of his failures.

Let’s take it to the end of the fourth quarter.

After the Lions and Penei Sewell turned in a dominant first-half performance, the Bears defense began to hem Detroit in. More importantly, Williams had been sublime, delivering heroic throw after heroic throw in a confident manner that really does make him seem like the NFL’s next superstar quarterback.

On a possession where the Bears started at their own one-yard line down 23-20, Williams comfortably got them into field goal range at the Lions’ 25-yard line. From that point on, most functional teams with responsible leadership as their coach would probably win or at least get the game-tying field goal out of it. Right?

Uh … right?

Let me introduce you to Matt Eberflus’ Chicago Bears.

An illegal hands-to-the-face penalty knocked out a Keenan Allen catch into the deep red zone. Williams took a sack on second and very long and seemed a tad out of sorts. Fortunately, the Bears had a timeout and could set up their game-tying field goal attempt while calming everything down.

Eberflus did not do that. He watched Williams hurriedly get everyone on Bears offense into position. It looked a lot more confusing and chaotic than it will ever read, trust me. And instead of taking a timeout and perhaps running a gimme play to get a closer field goal try, Eberflus watched Williams throw a deep pass to nowhere for the loss.

That’s right. Eberflus watched 36 seconds tick off the clock — with a timeout in hand — in field goal range. To lose the game.

It’s one of the most baffling end-game sequences you’ll ever see. While this doesn’t absolve Williams perhaps taking a timeout himself, it’s still on someone else to step up and back him up. Someone on the sideline who should be managing the game.

It’s so perfect for coach who has no nerve or confidence in the clutch at a historically low level:

I mean, what else can you say about the Bears’ futility with the game on the line under Eberflus’ guidance?

I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a team combust like this in a creative fashion the way they do. Every time the Bears have a win on tap in a close ending, Eberflus freezes like a deer in headlights. No matter how well the Bears defense plays, no matter how quarterbacks like Justin Fields then and Caleb Williams now play, Eberflus seemingly cannot steel up the cool-headed confidence to preserve his players’ efforts.

In the postgame, Nate Burleson said he’d never call for someone’s job, but he did mention how coaches lose their jobs over things like what the Bears did.

He’s not wrong:

Once again, the Bears have never fired a coach midseason. And if they don’t do it after their current guy threw away yet another win, they’re just going to keep putting Eberflus’ clutch-time anxiousness on an alarming display.

I’ve written some version of “fire Eberflus” for weeks now. But Thanksgiving exceeded all of that and then some.

Someone as good as Caleb Williams deserves better than Matt Eberflus. So do the Bears. We’ll see whether they realize that soon.

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