The end of the Matt Eberflus era has finally come after the Chicago Bears decided to fire the head coach following his epic blunder in Week 13 against the Detroit Lions. Eberflus is the first Bears head coach to be fired in-season, also.
Eberflus' firing was long overdue, but the final straw was his end-of-game blunder on Thursday, when the now-former Bears head coach didn't call a timeout near the end of regulation, which ruined his team's chances of possibly sending the game into overtime with a field goal.
The Bears will ride out the rest of the season with Thomas Brown at the helm. Brown was originally hired as the team's passing-game coordinator, but was bumped up to interim offensive coordinator after Shane Waldron was let go. Chicago has now bumped him up again to interim head coach.
With the Bears set to be in the market for a new head coach in 2025, you will hear the name of Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson thrown around as a potential candidate, which is understandable given how sought after he figures to be.
One NFL analyst, the Sporting News' Vinnie Iyer, believes Johnson is among the best possible candidates the Bears could consider.
"The ace play-caller is looking for the right opportunity, and the chance to work with Williams and stay in the division might be the 1-2 punch on top of salary to make the move happen," Iyer wrote on Johnson.
Seeing Johnson leave for a division rival would be a tough pill to swallow, and it isn't outlandish to consider given the fact that the Bears have a promising young quarterback and a solid supporting cast.
However, there's reason to believe that Johnson won't be interested in the job based on what ESPN's Adam Schefter said earlier this month. He noted that Johnson will be "very careful" in where he goes and added that the history of dysfunction in Chicago could deter him from taking the job.
"Ben Johnson is going to be very, very selective about the place that he chooses to go, if he decides even to leave Detroit. He's going to be very careful," he said on Get Up. "I don't know that Ben Johnson desires to leave and head into the division to go to a place where you're talking about the dysfunction that has existed within that organization."
The latest example of the Bears' dysfunction came in the approach to firing Eberflus, who was allowed to do his day-after press conference before getting canned. NFL Network's Tom Pelissero shared some insight how that played out.
"My understanding is George McCaskey, Kevin Warren and Ryan Poles had just begun a meeting that lasted multiple hours when Eberflus’ regularly scheduled press conference started," he reported. "A delay would’ve pointed towards a change that at that point hadn’t been decided. By the time the decision was finalized, the presser was long over and Eberflus was informed."
Whatever the case may be, the Bears were almost universally ripped for how the firing went down, and it isn't a good look for potential head coach candidates who might consider the Bears' vacancy next year.
If Schefter's thoughts are accurate, Johnson may have just crossed the Bears off his list after seeing how things went down with Eberflus.
