Insider’s sources indicate play before final snap doomed Eberflus

NFL insider Josina Anderson made three interesting points after speaking to sources in the wake of the Chicago Bears firing Matt Eberflus on Friday morning.

• Anderson said the head coach’s unpopular postgame comments following Thursday’s 23-20 loss at Detroit were made in part to protect Caleb Williams, who was familiar with the no-huddle play and knew he needed to snap the ball prior to the game clock reaching 15 seconds. Instead, with one timeout, the quarterback snapped the ball with five seconds and sailed an incompletion that hit the turf with zeroes on the clock.
• She added that after the team dissected the game on Friday morning, the film confirmed that the Bears shouldn’t have put Williams in that position. Errors, penalties and missed assignments – particularly on the next-to-last snap – doomed Chicago long before the final 32 seconds. On the play before, right tackle Larry Borom allowed Za’Darius Smith a free shot at the quarterback, Anderson said, on a play designed to be a quarterback draw; Borom had replaced an injured Darnell Wright in the third quarter.
• Interim head coach Thomas Brown was tapped to preserve as much continuity as possible around Williams and the Chicago offense. Brown replaced offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, fired by Eberflus on Nov. 12. The staff remains under evaluation, Anderson said.

While the writing seemed to be on the wall in the postgame locker room, a franchise that began in 1920 had never made an in-season coaching change until Friday.

Brown now gets two additional days before he leads Chicago (4-8) into San Francisco next Sunday. The 49ers (5-6) are at Buffalo this week on Sunday Night Football. The Bears have lost six straight games.

NFL teams have now fired three head coaches this season and all of them, including Dennis Allen in Arizona and Robert Saleh with the Jets, have defensive pedigrees. So, don’t be surprised if Chicago taps an offensive-minded head coach when the season ends.

For more information on the Bears, visit the Chicago team page at ProFootballPost.com.