Bill Zimmerman's Rant filled with [expletives]

[wab]

https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2024/ ... -hail-mary

Hot Take Monday: Because some columns can’t wait til Tuesday: [Expletive] Matt Eberflus!
The incoherent ramblings of a belligerent Bears fan.

By Bill Zimmerman Oct 28, 2024, 11:15am CDT 42 Comments / 9 New

I have tried to see Matt Eberflus's positive aspects. He develops players, and the players like him. I really [expletive] tried.

But I am [expletive] done.

This guy couldn’t coach his way out of a wet paper sack and I cannot sit here and pretend that things are going to get better.

There is so much blame to go around, but it all is directed back onto the shoulders of Eberflus. All. Of. It.

Caleb Williams struggled. It won’t be the last time. The offensive line was bad. It won’t be the last time. But this team. Its players, NOT its coaches, overcame all of it and gave the Chicago Bears are 3-point lead with 30 seconds to go.

And then Matt Eberflus inserted himself into the [expletive] game.

Let’s start with the second to last play of the game. Do you know what they teach defensive backs when they’re 13 years old in a situation like that? TAKE AWAY THE SIDELINES. Force the ball into the middle of the field, and guess what? It’s an incompletion, or the game is over. IT’S ACTUALLY SIMPLE.

Eberflus not only gives them the sidelines, he doesn’t even defend anything. He gives them a free 15 yards to set up a midfield Hail Mary. And then, this guy has the gall to say that play didn’t matter. Jayden Daniels launched that ball 65 yards, and it was just short of the goal line. What do you think happens if the Commanders are 15 yards further back, Matt? Did you flunk second-grade arithmetic?

I thought this guy was a good defensive coach.

And let’s talk about the last play, and we’ll save Tyrique Stevenson for later. But what are you doing with T.J. Edwards? Why are you spying Jayden Daniels from midfield? What the [expletive] did you think was going to happen? Daniels was going to take off down the field and run for a 52-yard touchdown with 8 defenders to beat and only 3 or 4 wide receivers trying to block for him? Not even Jayden Daniels is working his way through that defense. Come the [expletive] on. You played 10 on 11 on the final play. Maybe you push another defender deep and the play is properly covered. Maybe you rush 4, and Jayden Daniels doesn’t have THIRTEEN seconds to get the ball off. Something. Anything than having Edwards playing hopscotch at the 50-yard line.

Matt Eberflus should be humiliated. There are defensive coaches across the league laughing at what he did on that play. Laughing!

Let’s talk about Shane Waldron. Waldron is another guy I have tried to defend, but this game plan was atrocious. Based on how Caleb was looking downfield on early plays, it seemed like the plan was to attack the intermediate zone. Fine. I don’t hate that plan. But Caleb’s accuracy was off. ADAPT, SHANE. Let’s switch to more short stuff. Let’s make sure the ball gets out quickly. Gets some easy stuff to get Caleb in rhythm, nope. Let’s keep up with this bull [expletive] for three quarters.

The offensive line struggled. Things got worse (especially on pass protection) when Braxton Jones went down and Kiran Amegadjie came in. Amegadjie should not play this year. I’ve said it all season long. He needs a red shirt. And I know he made a couple of great blocks on the Swift touchdown run, but his pass blocking was scary bad. The Bears should have moved Matt Pryor to tackle and had Bill Murray come in, but they didn’t, and it didn’t matter by the end of the game because the entire offensive line appeared to be injured anyway. But did Waldron call for chips or anything that could have helped Amegadjie out? No, he left him to rot out there with no help and could have gotten Caleb Williams seriously hurt.

Let’s talk about the Doug Kramer play. The speed option play against the Colts was better. Giving the ball to an offensive lineman when you are trailing by 5 points is the dumbest [expletive] thing I can think of.

Do you know how many carries William Perry had in 1985? Five. Do you know how many carries he had when the Bears were trailing? ZERO. Why? Because you have Walter [expletive] Payton. That’s why.

The Bears had a power unit that was working. Put in Kramer to plow a [expletive] hole and let Roschon score. But no, let’s get [expletive] cute. So yes, Waldron called an idiotic play. You know who’s on the headset and can say, “Shane, no, let’s do a straight dive to Roschon and save the Kramer play for a different situation.” MATT EBERFLUS. You know who didn’t? MATT EBERFLUS.

So, coaching fails the Bears again, but does that stop the players? No, the defense steps up, and the Bears get the ball back, and the players basically say, we aren’t letting coaching fail us. Caleb Williams becomes a magician, showing tremendous resiliency after a rough 56 minutes. DJ Moore basically killed himself in that game to try and get the victory. The Bears get down to the goal line again, and then Shane Waldron starts throwing fades? You have three timeouts from the 1. Run the [expletive] ball.

They get their heads out of their collective asses. They run the ball, and guess what? They score.

We already talked about Eberflus’ failures on the last drive, so let’s talk about one more and then get to Tyrique Stevenson. Call a timeout, Matt. Let’s make sure the defense knows their role in this play, let’s make sure everything is set properly. There should be no concern about the offense having more time to set up, your defensive alignment is far more important.

Perhaps calling a timeout would have prevented one of the biggest boneheaded moments in sports history (yeah, I said it).

Tyrique Stevenson needs to grow up. And maybe he will after being humiliated. And he better be humiliated. The unsportsmanlike conduct penalty was bad enough, but what he did at the end of the game was egregious.

If somehow you missed it, Stevenson was too busy standing over at the sidelines taunting and arguing with fans than he was worried about the play on the field. He actually had his back turned to the play and the wide receivers were at the 20 before he even realized the play was underway and had to run back towards the middle of the field to get involved in the play.

You might say, but Bill, he hustled back and he was the one to tip it. First of all, you never tip a Hail Mary pass, you knock it down. Second of all, that wasn’t his job! His job was the be behind the scrum and not allow Noah Brown to leak behind. But he was out of position because of his nonsense at the sidelines.

I give Stevenson very little credit for his apology tweet. He hid from the media after the game. I’m going to assume (at least I hope) that the coaching staff reamed him out after the game, and that probably led to the apology.

When a kid does something mean to another child, does the parent tell them to write a note and stick it in their locker, or do they tell the child to stand up and apologize to the other child face-to-face? Stevenson stuck a note in a locker. He needed to stand up and take the questions from the media, look into the camera, and apologize to the fan base (one would hope he did that to his teammates in the locker room. One would hope).

Stevenson needs to be held accountable. Of course, they won’t cut him. Will they bench him for the Arizona game? They should. Players need to know that this type of behavior is unacceptable. Isn’t this a HITS principled team? Is T for taunting? I’m confused.

So here we are, at 4-3, with one of the most talented rosters this team has had in a long time and a coach that you simply cannot trust to make the right decisions on Sundays.

These last couple of columns we’ve been excited as we talked about Caleb [expletive] Williams. But now we need to move the expletive in front of the first name. Why did the Bears blow that game against Washington? [expletive] Matt Eberflus.

[Otis Day]

Could not have said it better.

[Moriarty]

bye, Coach Matt2

[dplank]

https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2024/ ... -hail-mary

Hot Take Monday: Because some columns can’t wait til Tuesday: [Expletive] Matt Eberflus!
The incoherent ramblings of a belligerent Bears fan.

By Bill Zimmerman Oct 28, 2024, 11:15am CDT 42 Comments / 9 New

I have tried to see Matt Eberflus's positive aspects. He develops players, and the players like him. I really [expletive] tried.

But I am [expletive] done.

This guy couldn’t coach his way out of a wet paper sack and I cannot sit here and pretend that things are going to get better.

There is so much blame to go around, but it all is directed back onto the shoulders of Eberflus. All. Of. It.

Caleb Williams struggled. It won’t be the last time. The offensive line was bad. It won’t be the last time. But this team. Its players, NOT its coaches, overcame all of it and gave the Chicago Bears are 3-point lead with 30 seconds to go.

And then Matt Eberflus inserted himself into the [expletive] game.

Let’s start with the second to last play of the game. Do you know what they teach defensive backs when they’re 13 years old in a situation like that? TAKE AWAY THE SIDELINES. Force the ball into the middle of the field, and guess what? It’s an incompletion, or the game is over. IT’S ACTUALLY SIMPLE.

Eberflus not only gives them the sidelines, he doesn’t even defend anything. He gives them a free 15 yards to set up a midfield Hail Mary. And then, this guy has the gall to say that play didn’t matter. Jayden Daniels launched that ball 65 yards, and it was just short of the goal line. What do you think happens if the Commanders are 15 yards further back, Matt? Did you flunk second-grade arithmetic?

I thought this guy was a good defensive coach.

And let’s talk about the last play, and we’ll save Tyrique Stevenson for later. But what are you doing with T.J. Edwards? Why are you spying Jayden Daniels from midfield? What the [expletive] did you think was going to happen? Daniels was going to take off down the field and run for a 52-yard touchdown with 8 defenders to beat and only 3 or 4 wide receivers trying to block for him? Not even Jayden Daniels is working his way through that defense. Come the [expletive] on. You played 10 on 11 on the final play. Maybe you push another defender deep and the play is properly covered. Maybe you rush 4, and Jayden Daniels doesn’t have THIRTEEN seconds to get the ball off. Something. Anything than having Edwards playing hopscotch at the 50-yard line.

Matt Eberflus should be humiliated. There are defensive coaches across the league laughing at what he did on that play. Laughing!

Let’s talk about Shane Waldron. Waldron is another guy I have tried to defend, but this game plan was atrocious. Based on how Caleb was looking downfield on early plays, it seemed like the plan was to attack the intermediate zone. Fine. I don’t hate that plan. But Caleb’s accuracy was off. ADAPT, SHANE. Let’s switch to more short stuff. Let’s make sure the ball gets out quickly. Gets some easy stuff to get Caleb in rhythm, nope. Let’s keep up with this bull [expletive] for three quarters.

The offensive line struggled. Things got worse (especially on pass protection) when Braxton Jones went down and Kiran Amegadjie came in. Amegadjie should not play this year. I’ve said it all season long. He needs a red shirt. And I know he made a couple of great blocks on the Swift touchdown run, but his pass blocking was scary bad. The Bears should have moved Matt Pryor to tackle and had Bill Murray come in, but they didn’t, and it didn’t matter by the end of the game because the entire offensive line appeared to be injured anyway. But did Waldron call for chips or anything that could have helped Amegadjie out? No, he left him to rot out there with no help and could have gotten Caleb Williams seriously hurt.

Let’s talk about the Doug Kramer play. The speed option play against the Colts was better. Giving the ball to an offensive lineman when you are trailing by 5 points is the dumbest [expletive] thing I can think of.

Do you know how many carries William Perry had in 1985? Five. Do you know how many carries he had when the Bears were trailing? ZERO. Why? Because you have Walter [expletive] Payton. That’s why.

The Bears had a power unit that was working. Put in Kramer to plow a [expletive] hole and let Roschon score. But no, let’s get [expletive] cute. So yes, Waldron called an idiotic play. You know who’s on the headset and can say, “Shane, no, let’s do a straight dive to Roschon and save the Kramer play for a different situation.” MATT EBERFLUS. You know who didn’t? MATT EBERFLUS.

So, coaching fails the Bears again, but does that stop the players? No, the defense steps up, and the Bears get the ball back, and the players basically say, we aren’t letting coaching fail us. Caleb Williams becomes a magician, showing tremendous resiliency after a rough 56 minutes. DJ Moore basically killed himself in that game to try and get the victory. The Bears get down to the goal line again, and then Shane Waldron starts throwing fades? You have three timeouts from the 1. Run the [expletive] ball.

They get their heads out of their collective asses. They run the ball, and guess what? They score.

We already talked about Eberflus’ failures on the last drive, so let’s talk about one more and then get to Tyrique Stevenson. Call a timeout, Matt. Let’s make sure the defense knows their role in this play, let’s make sure everything is set properly. There should be no concern about the offense having more time to set up, your defensive alignment is far more important.

Perhaps calling a timeout would have prevented one of the biggest boneheaded moments in sports history (yeah, I said it).

Tyrique Stevenson needs to grow up. And maybe he will after being humiliated. And he better be humiliated. The unsportsmanlike conduct penalty was bad enough, but what he did at the end of the game was egregious.

If somehow you missed it, Stevenson was too busy standing over at the sidelines taunting and arguing with fans than he was worried about the play on the field. He actually had his back turned to the play and the wide receivers were at the 20 before he even realized the play was underway and had to run back towards the middle of the field to get involved in the play.

You might say, but Bill, he hustled back and he was the one to tip it. First of all, you never tip a Hail Mary pass, you knock it down. Second of all, that wasn’t his job! His job was the be behind the scrum and not allow Noah Brown to leak behind. But he was out of position because of his nonsense at the sidelines.

I give Stevenson very little credit for his apology tweet. He hid from the media after the game. I’m going to assume (at least I hope) that the coaching staff reamed him out after the game, and that probably led to the apology.

When a kid does something mean to another child, does the parent tell them to write a note and stick it in their locker, or do they tell the child to stand up and apologize to the other child face-to-face? Stevenson stuck a note in a locker. He needed to stand up and take the questions from the media, look into the camera, and apologize to the fan base (one would hope he did that to his teammates in the locker room. One would hope).

Stevenson needs to be held accountable. Of course, they won’t cut him. Will they bench him for the Arizona game? They should. Players need to know that this type of behavior is unacceptable. Isn’t this a HITS principled team? Is T for taunting? I’m confused.

So here we are, at 4-3, with one of the most talented rosters this team has had in a long time and a coach that you simply cannot trust to make the right decisions on Sundays.

These last couple of columns we’ve been excited as we talked about Caleb [expletive] Williams. But now we need to move the expletive in front of the first name. Why did the Bears blow that game against Washington? [expletive] Matt Eberflus.

LMFAO that’s an epic rant.

[WagonForce]

It's tough to give no credit to the coaching staff for the team's resilience through a game on the road, against a tough opponent, where the team did not fold and actually had all but secured the victory with seconds remaining on the clock. I was preparing to laud the coaching staff for finding a way to steal a game they were outclassed in, until the Bears managed to find a way to lose it.

I've said it before and I'll repeat it here. I don't have confidence in this staff.

Eberflus has already overseen 3 historically shocking losses in his time with the Bears. He has hired multiple subordinates that have either had to resign in disgrace or been fired for incompetence. While he has led a defense that has been impressive, the rest of his results paint a picture of a man that is in over his head as a head coach. Far too often, the Bears come out flat and look unprepared to play. They take too many penalties. Then there's the dubious clock management, baffling play challenge decisions, and strange personnel usage that leaves you scratching your head.

The Tyrique Stevenson debacle on the final play of the game is a devastating indictment of the Bears head coach, and that was before seeing the reports from players like Kmet that there have been issues in practice with players not focusing.

There's still plenty of season left, including all 6 divisional games. If Eberflus can get his team back on track and find a way to outperform a very difficult schedule, this heartbreaker of a game will look a lot less damning. I'm not going to hold my breath for that though.

[wab]

Eberflus has already overseen 3 historically shocking losses in his time with the Bears.

Well... 4.

3 in 2023 where they had a 90% or higher chance to win (Denver/Cleveland/Detroit) and then yesterday where it was like 98%

[Ditka’s dictaphone]

https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2024/ ... -hail-mary

Hot Take Monday: Because some columns can’t wait til Tuesday: [Expletive] Matt Eberflus!
The incoherent ramblings of a belligerent Bears fan.

By Bill Zimmerman Oct 28, 2024, 11:15am CDT 42 Comments / 9 New

I have tried to see Matt Eberflus's positive aspects. He develops players, and the players like him. I really [expletive] tried.

But I am [expletive] done.

This guy couldn’t coach his way out of a wet paper sack and I cannot sit here and pretend that things are going to get better.

There is so much blame to go around, but it all is directed back onto the shoulders of Eberflus. All. Of. It.

Caleb Williams struggled. It won’t be the last time. The offensive line was bad. It won’t be the last time. But this team. Its players, NOT its coaches, overcame all of it and gave the Chicago Bears are 3-point lead with 30 seconds to go.

And then Matt Eberflus inserted himself into the [expletive] game.

Let’s start with the second to last play of the game. Do you know what they teach defensive backs when they’re 13 years old in a situation like that? TAKE AWAY THE SIDELINES. Force the ball into the middle of the field, and guess what? It’s an incompletion, or the game is over. IT’S ACTUALLY SIMPLE.

Eberflus not only gives them the sidelines, he doesn’t even defend anything. He gives them a free 15 yards to set up a midfield Hail Mary. And then, this guy has the gall to say that play didn’t matter. Jayden Daniels launched that ball 65 yards, and it was just short of the goal line. What do you think happens if the Commanders are 15 yards further back, Matt? Did you flunk second-grade arithmetic?

I thought this guy was a good defensive coach.

And let’s talk about the last play, and we’ll save Tyrique Stevenson for later. But what are you doing with T.J. Edwards? Why are you spying Jayden Daniels from midfield? What the [expletive] did you think was going to happen? Daniels was going to take off down the field and run for a 52-yard touchdown with 8 defenders to beat and only 3 or 4 wide receivers trying to block for him? Not even Jayden Daniels is working his way through that defense. Come the [expletive] on. You played 10 on 11 on the final play. Maybe you push another defender deep and the play is properly covered. Maybe you rush 4, and Jayden Daniels doesn’t have THIRTEEN seconds to get the ball off. Something. Anything than having Edwards playing hopscotch at the 50-yard line.

Matt Eberflus should be humiliated. There are defensive coaches across the league laughing at what he did on that play. Laughing!

Let’s talk about Shane Waldron. Waldron is another guy I have tried to defend, but this game plan was atrocious. Based on how Caleb was looking downfield on early plays, it seemed like the plan was to attack the intermediate zone. Fine. I don’t hate that plan. But Caleb’s accuracy was off. ADAPT, SHANE. Let’s switch to more short stuff. Let’s make sure the ball gets out quickly. Gets some easy stuff to get Caleb in rhythm, nope. Let’s keep up with this bull [expletive] for three quarters.

The offensive line struggled. Things got worse (especially on pass protection) when Braxton Jones went down and Kiran Amegadjie came in. Amegadjie should not play this year. I’ve said it all season long. He needs a red shirt. And I know he made a couple of great blocks on the Swift touchdown run, but his pass blocking was scary bad. The Bears should have moved Matt Pryor to tackle and had Bill Murray come in, but they didn’t, and it didn’t matter by the end of the game because the entire offensive line appeared to be injured anyway. But did Waldron call for chips or anything that could have helped Amegadjie out? No, he left him to rot out there with no help and could have gotten Caleb Williams seriously hurt.

Let’s talk about the Doug Kramer play. The speed option play against the Colts was better. Giving the ball to an offensive lineman when you are trailing by 5 points is the dumbest [expletive] thing I can think of.

Do you know how many carries William Perry had in 1985? Five. Do you know how many carries he had when the Bears were trailing? ZERO. Why? Because you have Walter [expletive] Payton. That’s why.

The Bears had a power unit that was working. Put in Kramer to plow a [expletive] hole and let Roschon score. But no, let’s get [expletive] cute. So yes, Waldron called an idiotic play. You know who’s on the headset and can say, “Shane, no, let’s do a straight dive to Roschon and save the Kramer play for a different situation.” MATT EBERFLUS. You know who didn’t? MATT EBERFLUS.

So, coaching fails the Bears again, but does that stop the players? No, the defense steps up, and the Bears get the ball back, and the players basically say, we aren’t letting coaching fail us. Caleb Williams becomes a magician, showing tremendous resiliency after a rough 56 minutes. DJ Moore basically killed himself in that game to try and get the victory. The Bears get down to the goal line again, and then Shane Waldron starts throwing fades? You have three timeouts from the 1. Run the [expletive] ball.

They get their heads out of their collective asses. They run the ball, and guess what? They score.

We already talked about Eberflus’ failures on the last drive, so let’s talk about one more and then get to Tyrique Stevenson. Call a timeout, Matt. Let’s make sure the defense knows their role in this play, let’s make sure everything is set properly. There should be no concern about the offense having more time to set up, your defensive alignment is far more important.

Perhaps calling a timeout would have prevented one of the biggest boneheaded moments in sports history (yeah, I said it).

Tyrique Stevenson needs to grow up. And maybe he will after being humiliated. And he better be humiliated. The unsportsmanlike conduct penalty was bad enough, but what he did at the end of the game was egregious.

If somehow you missed it, Stevenson was too busy standing over at the sidelines taunting and arguing with fans than he was worried about the play on the field. He actually had his back turned to the play and the wide receivers were at the 20 before he even realized the play was underway and had to run back towards the middle of the field to get involved in the play.

You might say, but Bill, he hustled back and he was the one to tip it. First of all, you never tip a Hail Mary pass, you knock it down. Second of all, that wasn’t his job! His job was the be behind the scrum and not allow Noah Brown to leak behind. But he was out of position because of his nonsense at the sidelines.

I give Stevenson very little credit for his apology tweet. He hid from the media after the game. I’m going to assume (at least I hope) that the coaching staff reamed him out after the game, and that probably led to the apology.

When a kid does something mean to another child, does the parent tell them to write a note and stick it in their locker, or do they tell the child to stand up and apologize to the other child face-to-face? Stevenson stuck a note in a locker. He needed to stand up and take the questions from the media, look into the camera, and apologize to the fan base (one would hope he did that to his teammates in the locker room. One would hope).

Stevenson needs to be held accountable. Of course, they won’t cut him. Will they bench him for the Arizona game? They should. Players need to know that this type of behavior is unacceptable. Isn’t this a HITS principled team? Is T for taunting? I’m confused.

So here we are, at 4-3, with one of the most talented rosters this team has had in a long time and a coach that you simply cannot trust to make the right decisions on Sundays.

These last couple of columns we’ve been excited as we talked about Caleb [expletive] Williams. But now we need to move the expletive in front of the first name. Why did the Bears blow that game against Washington? [expletive] Matt Eberflus.

LMFAO that’s an epic rant.

Not angry enough

[malk]

Christ, the quality of that prose is worse than any of the on field decisions.

[Heinz D.]

That guy is totally wrong. The speed option play at the goal line was MOST DEFINITELY dumber than the Kramer run.

[VA_Mountain_Bear]

Flous is an above average DC in average situations, and below average in the most intense ones. He may have some skill in evaluating defensive player sto draft or sign, but he is a bucket of piss when it comes to evaluating coaches.

[RichH55]

Christ, the quality of that prose is worse than any of the on field decisions.

Yeah - listening to the Score is Somerset Maugham compared to this - At least he titled it "Hot Take Monday"

[BearsFanInMN]

That guy is totally wrong. The speed option play at the goal line was MOST DEFINITELY dumber than the Kramer run.

I think this is arguing whether to drown or be burned alive is worse, arguing levels of suck, ineptitude, or pain ignores neither is good.

[RichH55]

That guy is totally wrong. The speed option play at the goal line was MOST DEFINITELY dumber than the Kramer run.

I think this is arguing whether to drown or be burned alive is worse, arguing levels of suck, ineptitude, or pain ignores neither is good.

Yeah but this guy is a hot take artist - so it has to be like

OH being Burned Alive is far worse, how could anyone say anything different? I knew Witches back in the day - to a WOMAN - they will tell you how much worse Fire is than Water! I mean look at Captain Planet- Earth is a garbage power - they know they are playing that kid for a sucker - BUT they also know how much more powerful Fire is than Water - that's why the kid from the USA gets it! Did they give the Commie fire? Nope. Ted Turner knew his business.....

End Stephen A voice

[Heinz D.]

I think this is arguing whether to drown or be burned alive is worse, arguing levels of suck, ineptitude, or pain ignores neither is good.

[Burl]

Meh.
I feel like Flus is an ok coach. Not a difference maker of any kind but can field a competitive team if he’s got decent players.

Heck his defense kept us alive all day. The other team got lucky on a 1/1000 shot. Sucks it happened but once in a while the other team gets a lucky break. This wasn’t a “crown their ass” collapse.

[Magilla_Gorilla]

Meh.
I feel like Flus is an ok coach. Not a difference maker of any kind but can field a competitive team if he’s got decent players.

Heck his defense kept us alive all day. The other team got lucky on a 1/1000 shot. Sucks it happened but once in a while the other team gets a lucky break. This wasn’t a “crown their ass” collapse.

Hail Marys have about a %8.5 success rate (1 in 12 attempts)

But it wasn't even 1 in 12 by the time Eberflus fuckups were calculated in.

If they had guarded the sidelines on the previous play they wouldn't have even been able to go for the hail mary as they would have been too far to heave it to the end zone.

If he had called timeout they may have gotten Stevenson lined up and everyone understanding their roles instead of everybody jumping at the ball.

If he had called timeout they may have thought to get a guy on the field taller than 6'

If he had called timeout they may have considered rushing more than 3 and having a LB pull up a chair in the middle of the field.

This is the 4th game in the last 2 seasons that the Bears have had a greater than 90% win projection in the 4th quarter and Eberflus has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

[Ditka’s dictaphone]

This is the 4th game in the last 2 seasons that the Bears have had a greater than 90% win projection in the 4th quarter and Eberflus has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

I understand the chance of that happening - 4 times in 2seasons - is more than a million to one.

[malk]

This is the 4th game in the last 2 seasons that the Bears have had a greater than 90% win projection in the 4th quarter and Eberflus has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

I understand the chance of that happening - 4 times in 2seasons - is more than a million to one.

The probability of four 5% events happening is 6.25 in a million but that's not what's being calculated here. The background population is 41 (games that Flus has coached) but even then each game isn't a fully independent event and, I think more importantly, picking the temporal high point of a win probability stat in an ongoing event would make a mockery of statistical relevance.

But even were I to accept the above, abstracting away from the actuality of those games only serves to muddy the waters. Lets take the Broncos game. We get to a 28-7 position before the Broncos bring it back to 28-14 at the end of the 3rd. From there:

Bears 3 and out.
Broncos drive 66 yards for a touchdown. 21-28 Bears.
Bear start to move the ball but then Fields is strip sacked and the Broncos return for a score. 28-28.

*Now for the key drive*

Bears move the ball to the Bronco's 18 and have to make a call on 4th and 1. Do we go ahead with a field goal or go for it? We've been moving the ball for the last couple of drives and have scored 28, plus the defence isn't stopping the Broncos of late, I think you have to go for it. We do, fail and the Broncos go on to get the field goal which ultimately wins us the game.

One quick point for reference, this is pre Sweat and Jaylon Johnson and Kyler Gordon are out. Our DBs are Stevenson, Terell Smith, Elijah Hicks and Brisker.

One of the criticisms I've seen of Flus is that he's too passive, too risk averse. Well here's a situation where he went for it with our young team and we couldn't get over the line. It's absolutely fair to say that Flus, as head coach, is ultimately responsible (a good point here to add that Poles builds the team and, no shade to him, we hadn't built a particularly winning roster at that point), but if someone is to make a reasonable argument that this loss was the result of gameday coaching failure... well I'd like to see that set out.

(Also can someone remind me what the others ones are, the Lions game, this Commanders one, what's the other?)

[Ditka’s dictaphone]

Wasn’t it Lions again 2022 and Browns 2023?

[wab]

Wasn’t it Lions again 2022 and Browns 2023?

Lions, Browns, Broncos in 2023.

[malk]

Wasn’t it Lions again 2022 and Browns 2023?

Lions, Browns, Broncos in 2023.

I mean good god, the Lions game was two scores in the 4th and the team that has the OC everyone is clamouring we get as HC, and went the the NFC Championship game that year, managed to pull off two great TD drives. What am I not remembering? Was it that we went into prevent defence? I can't see any botched timeouts from the play by play? And then we go to the beatified Kevin O'Connell's house and steal a win with a final drive field goal before getting revenge on that same Lions team at ours...

And the Browns game, we went 10 points up with 7 minutes left in the 3rd and the 10th best offence in the league that year managed to overcome it because the offence couldn't score again and we finished on 17 points, what massive insight is this supposed to tell me?

There were 64 4th quarter comebacks in 2023, 11.8% of games, and a significant proportion of those would involve a pretty hefty swing in win %. A team that had a really ropey offence and a QB whose play got significantly worse in the 4th quarter, that team couldn't hold onto leads? JFC people, this is mind blowing!

But the Titans game where the offence lays an egg that spontaneously combusts and cooks itself, well Flus Flussed the offence and we shoulda been better (*cough* debut game for QB).

I hate it here lol.

[Rusty Trombagent]

Lions, Browns, Broncos in 2023.

I mean good god, the Lions game was two scores in the 4th and the team that has the OC everyone is clamouring we get as HC, and went the the NFC Championship game that year, managed to pull off two great TD drives. What am I not remembering? Was it that we went into prevent defence? I can't see any botched timeouts from the play by play? And then we go to the beatified Kevin O'Connell's house and steal a win with a final drive field goal before getting revenge on that same Lions team at ours...

People were lazily saying we went into prevent in that Lions game, but honestly we just got beat. Monty in particular ran it down our throats and Goff was clutch as hell. At the time my takeaway was that our DL was completely gassed and there was just zero push.

[Mikefive]

What an epic rant.

I've been rolling around this stuff in my mind since the game and thinking that I needed to make a list of the coaching screw ups just so I could see them in front of my face. Zimmerman pretty much did that in a way that also captured my anger and frustration about what happened.

Five stars for that.

[Bearfacts]

https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2024/ ... -hail-mary

Hot Take Monday: Because some columns can’t wait til Tuesday: [Expletive] Matt Eberflus!
The incoherent ramblings of a belligerent Bears fan.

By Bill Zimmerman Oct 28, 2024, 11:15am CDT 42 Comments / 9 New

I have tried to see Matt Eberflus's positive aspects. He develops players, and the players like him. I really [expletive] tried.

But I am [expletive] done.

This guy couldn’t coach his way out of a wet paper sack and I cannot sit here and pretend that things are going to get better.

There is so much blame to go around, but it all is directed back onto the shoulders of Eberflus. All. Of. It.

Caleb Williams struggled. It won’t be the last time. The offensive line was bad. It won’t be the last time. But this team. Its players, NOT its coaches, overcame all of it and gave the Chicago Bears are 3-point lead with 30 seconds to go.

And then Matt Eberflus inserted himself into the [expletive] game.

Let’s start with the second to last play of the game. Do you know what they teach defensive backs when they’re 13 years old in a situation like that? TAKE AWAY THE SIDELINES. Force the ball into the middle of the field, and guess what? It’s an incompletion, or the game is over. IT’S ACTUALLY SIMPLE.

Eberflus not only gives them the sidelines, he doesn’t even defend anything. He gives them a free 15 yards to set up a midfield Hail Mary. And then, this guy has the gall to say that play didn’t matter. Jayden Daniels launched that ball 65 yards, and it was just short of the goal line. What do you think happens if the Commanders are 15 yards further back, Matt? Did you flunk second-grade arithmetic?

I thought this guy was a good defensive coach.

And let’s talk about the last play, and we’ll save Tyrique Stevenson for later. But what are you doing with T.J. Edwards? Why are you spying Jayden Daniels from midfield? What the [expletive] did you think was going to happen? Daniels was going to take off down the field and run for a 52-yard touchdown with 8 defenders to beat and only 3 or 4 wide receivers trying to block for him? Not even Jayden Daniels is working his way through that defense. Come the [expletive] on. You played 10 on 11 on the final play. Maybe you push another defender deep and the play is properly covered. Maybe you rush 4, and Jayden Daniels doesn’t have THIRTEEN seconds to get the ball off. Something. Anything than having Edwards playing hopscotch at the 50-yard line.

Matt Eberflus should be humiliated. There are defensive coaches across the league laughing at what he did on that play. Laughing!

Let’s talk about Shane Waldron. Waldron is another guy I have tried to defend, but this game plan was atrocious. Based on how Caleb was looking downfield on early plays, it seemed like the plan was to attack the intermediate zone. Fine. I don’t hate that plan. But Caleb’s accuracy was off. ADAPT, SHANE. Let’s switch to more short stuff. Let’s make sure the ball gets out quickly. Gets some easy stuff to get Caleb in rhythm, nope. Let’s keep up with this bull [expletive] for three quarters.

The offensive line struggled. Things got worse (especially on pass protection) when Braxton Jones went down and Kiran Amegadjie came in. Amegadjie should not play this year. I’ve said it all season long. He needs a red shirt. And I know he made a couple of great blocks on the Swift touchdown run, but his pass blocking was scary bad. The Bears should have moved Matt Pryor to tackle and had Bill Murray come in, but they didn’t, and it didn’t matter by the end of the game because the entire offensive line appeared to be injured anyway. But did Waldron call for chips or anything that could have helped Amegadjie out? No, he left him to rot out there with no help and could have gotten Caleb Williams seriously hurt.

Let’s talk about the Doug Kramer play. The speed option play against the Colts was better. Giving the ball to an offensive lineman when you are trailing by 5 points is the dumbest [expletive] thing I can think of.

Do you know how many carries William Perry had in 1985? Five. Do you know how many carries he had when the Bears were trailing? ZERO. Why? Because you have Walter [expletive] Payton. That’s why.

The Bears had a power unit that was working. Put in Kramer to plow a [expletive] hole and let Roschon score. But no, let’s get [expletive] cute. So yes, Waldron called an idiotic play. You know who’s on the headset and can say, “Shane, no, let’s do a straight dive to Roschon and save the Kramer play for a different situation.” MATT EBERFLUS. You know who didn’t? MATT EBERFLUS.

So, coaching fails the Bears again, but does that stop the players? No, the defense steps up, and the Bears get the ball back, and the players basically say, we aren’t letting coaching fail us. Caleb Williams becomes a magician, showing tremendous resiliency after a rough 56 minutes. DJ Moore basically killed himself in that game to try and get the victory. The Bears get down to the goal line again, and then Shane Waldron starts throwing fades? You have three timeouts from the 1. Run the [expletive] ball.

They get their heads out of their collective asses. They run the ball, and guess what? They score.

We already talked about Eberflus’ failures on the last drive, so let’s talk about one more and then get to Tyrique Stevenson. Call a timeout, Matt. Let’s make sure the defense knows their role in this play, let’s make sure everything is set properly. There should be no concern about the offense having more time to set up, your defensive alignment is far more important.

Perhaps calling a timeout would have prevented one of the biggest boneheaded moments in sports history (yeah, I said it).

Tyrique Stevenson needs to grow up. And maybe he will after being humiliated. And he better be humiliated. The unsportsmanlike conduct penalty was bad enough, but what he did at the end of the game was egregious.

If somehow you missed it, Stevenson was too busy standing over at the sidelines taunting and arguing with fans than he was worried about the play on the field. He actually had his back turned to the play and the wide receivers were at the 20 before he even realized the play was underway and had to run back towards the middle of the field to get involved in the play.

You might say, but Bill, he hustled back and he was the one to tip it. First of all, you never tip a Hail Mary pass, you knock it down. Second of all, that wasn’t his job! His job was the be behind the scrum and not allow Noah Brown to leak behind. But he was out of position because of his nonsense at the sidelines.

I give Stevenson very little credit for his apology tweet. He hid from the media after the game. I’m going to assume (at least I hope) that the coaching staff reamed him out after the game, and that probably led to the apology.

When a kid does something mean to another child, does the parent tell them to write a note and stick it in their locker, or do they tell the child to stand up and apologize to the other child face-to-face? Stevenson stuck a note in a locker. He needed to stand up and take the questions from the media, look into the camera, and apologize to the fan base (one would hope he did that to his teammates in the locker room. One would hope).

Stevenson needs to be held accountable. Of course, they won’t cut him. Will they bench him for the Arizona game? They should. Players need to know that this type of behavior is unacceptable. Isn’t this a HITS principled team? Is T for taunting? I’m confused.

So here we are, at 4-3, with one of the most talented rosters this team has had in a long time and a coach that you simply cannot trust to make the right decisions on Sundays.

These last couple of columns we’ve been excited as we talked about Caleb [expletive] Williams. But now we need to move the expletive in front of the first name. Why did the Bears blow that game against Washington? [expletive] Matt Eberflus.

Gonna double down on this......

[Bearfacts]

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Mon Oct 28, 2024 1:59 pm
It's tough to give no credit to the coaching staff for the team's resilience through a game on the road, against a tough opponent, where the team did not fold and actually had all but secured the victory with seconds remaining on the clock. I was preparing to laud the coaching staff for finding a way to steal a game they were outclassed in, until the Bears managed to find a way to lose it.

I've said it before and I'll repeat it here. I don't have confidence in this staff.

Eberflus has already overseen 3 historically shocking losses in his time with the Bears. He has hired multiple subordinates that have either had to resign in disgrace or been fired for incompetence. While he has led a defense that has been impressive, the rest of his results paint a picture of a man that is in over his head as a head coach. Far too often, the Bears come out flat and look unprepared to play. They take too many penalties. Then there's the dubious clock management, baffling play challenge decisions, and strange personnel usage that leaves you scratching your head.


You can put me down for the same and Lord knows I have really tried to overlook this part and focus on how well the defense has developed. But in the end much like with Vic Fangio in Denver some very good coaches and coordinators don't have the right stuff to be good NFL Head Coaches. Now we can add Matt Eberflus to that list.

Here's the thing that trips my trigger. His guys have gone out and played their asses off trying to win only to have poor coaching decisions cause a loss. Flus chokes with a game on the line and he's not improved at all in this regard. Maybe the most annoying thing for me is when he always blames failures on details and player execution yet is never willing to be accountable for the coaching mistakes that also led to failure. It's tough to blame players for being immature when their HC refused to be accountable for his part in a tough loss and their have been four of those now in just two seasons.

These were four games in which the percentage of chance of a win exceeded 90% and in a couple of cases 95%. We lost all four the toughest of which may have been last Sunday because it truly took one miracle play to do it. Stevenson phuc'd up and got punked again failing to carry out his assignment but Flus set them up for even the possibility of it happening and not only did he refuse to accept that he doubled down on it not being his own decision that led to it. It's happened before way too many times so I'm done with him now. This is not a guy we can win big with. He's not "The One".

In order to earn and extension now the road to it that Flus has in front of him is not one I believe he can travel. He would have to wax the asses of his NFCN opponents in order to climb over them to get in the playoffs. I can see that happening but what I can see is two more losses to GB which will cause him to see his own slow death happen before his eyes. He can't beat the better teams because he's always being outcoached and I don't think he even realizes it. It's even worse in the NFCN now because he's gotten very predictable much like Lovie did. You can't coach like he does and keep you job.

[Boris13c]

https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2024/ ... -hail-mary

Hot Take Monday: Because some columns can’t wait til Tuesday: [Expletive] Matt Eberflus!
The incoherent ramblings of a belligerent Bears fan.

By Bill Zimmerman Oct 28, 2024, 11:15am CDT 42 Comments / 9 New

I have tried to see Matt Eberflus's positive aspects. He develops players, and the players like him. I really [expletive] tried.

But I am [expletive] done.

This guy couldn’t coach his way out of a wet paper sack and I cannot sit here and pretend that things are going to get better.

There is so much blame to go around, but it all is directed back onto the shoulders of Eberflus. All. Of. It.

Caleb Williams struggled. It won’t be the last time. The offensive line was bad. It won’t be the last time. But this team. Its players, NOT its coaches, overcame all of it and gave the Chicago Bears are 3-point lead with 30 seconds to go.

And then Matt Eberflus inserted himself into the [expletive] game.

Let’s start with the second to last play of the game. Do you know what they teach defensive backs when they’re 13 years old in a situation like that? TAKE AWAY THE SIDELINES. Force the ball into the middle of the field, and guess what? It’s an incompletion, or the game is over. IT’S ACTUALLY SIMPLE.

Eberflus not only gives them the sidelines, he doesn’t even defend anything. He gives them a free 15 yards to set up a midfield Hail Mary. And then, this guy has the gall to say that play didn’t matter. Jayden Daniels launched that ball 65 yards, and it was just short of the goal line. What do you think happens if the Commanders are 15 yards further back, Matt? Did you flunk second-grade arithmetic?

I thought this guy was a good defensive coach.

And let’s talk about the last play, and we’ll save Tyrique Stevenson for later. But what are you doing with T.J. Edwards? Why are you spying Jayden Daniels from midfield? What the [expletive] did you think was going to happen? Daniels was going to take off down the field and run for a 52-yard touchdown with 8 defenders to beat and only 3 or 4 wide receivers trying to block for him? Not even Jayden Daniels is working his way through that defense. Come the [expletive] on. You played 10 on 11 on the final play. Maybe you push another defender deep and the play is properly covered. Maybe you rush 4, and Jayden Daniels doesn’t have THIRTEEN seconds to get the ball off. Something. Anything than having Edwards playing hopscotch at the 50-yard line.

Matt Eberflus should be humiliated. There are defensive coaches across the league laughing at what he did on that play. Laughing!

Let’s talk about Shane Waldron. Waldron is another guy I have tried to defend, but this game plan was atrocious. Based on how Caleb was looking downfield on early plays, it seemed like the plan was to attack the intermediate zone. Fine. I don’t hate that plan. But Caleb’s accuracy was off. ADAPT, SHANE. Let’s switch to more short stuff. Let’s make sure the ball gets out quickly. Gets some easy stuff to get Caleb in rhythm, nope. Let’s keep up with this bull [expletive] for three quarters.

The offensive line struggled. Things got worse (especially on pass protection) when Braxton Jones went down and Kiran Amegadjie came in. Amegadjie should not play this year. I’ve said it all season long. He needs a red shirt. And I know he made a couple of great blocks on the Swift touchdown run, but his pass blocking was scary bad. The Bears should have moved Matt Pryor to tackle and had Bill Murray come in, but they didn’t, and it didn’t matter by the end of the game because the entire offensive line appeared to be injured anyway. But did Waldron call for chips or anything that could have helped Amegadjie out? No, he left him to rot out there with no help and could have gotten Caleb Williams seriously hurt.

Let’s talk about the Doug Kramer play. The speed option play against the Colts was better. Giving the ball to an offensive lineman when you are trailing by 5 points is the dumbest [expletive] thing I can think of.

Do you know how many carries William Perry had in 1985? Five. Do you know how many carries he had when the Bears were trailing? ZERO. Why? Because you have Walter [expletive] Payton. That’s why.

The Bears had a power unit that was working. Put in Kramer to plow a [expletive] hole and let Roschon score. But no, let’s get [expletive] cute. So yes, Waldron called an idiotic play. You know who’s on the headset and can say, “Shane, no, let’s do a straight dive to Roschon and save the Kramer play for a different situation.” MATT EBERFLUS. You know who didn’t? MATT EBERFLUS.

So, coaching fails the Bears again, but does that stop the players? No, the defense steps up, and the Bears get the ball back, and the players basically say, we aren’t letting coaching fail us. Caleb Williams becomes a magician, showing tremendous resiliency after a rough 56 minutes. DJ Moore basically killed himself in that game to try and get the victory. The Bears get down to the goal line again, and then Shane Waldron starts throwing fades? You have three timeouts from the 1. Run the [expletive] ball.

They get their heads out of their collective asses. They run the ball, and guess what? They score.

We already talked about Eberflus’ failures on the last drive, so let’s talk about one more and then get to Tyrique Stevenson. Call a timeout, Matt. Let’s make sure the defense knows their role in this play, let’s make sure everything is set properly. There should be no concern about the offense having more time to set up, your defensive alignment is far more important.

Perhaps calling a timeout would have prevented one of the biggest boneheaded moments in sports history (yeah, I said it).

Tyrique Stevenson needs to grow up. And maybe he will after being humiliated. And he better be humiliated. The unsportsmanlike conduct penalty was bad enough, but what he did at the end of the game was egregious.

If somehow you missed it, Stevenson was too busy standing over at the sidelines taunting and arguing with fans than he was worried about the play on the field. He actually had his back turned to the play and the wide receivers were at the 20 before he even realized the play was underway and had to run back towards the middle of the field to get involved in the play.

You might say, but Bill, he hustled back and he was the one to tip it. First of all, you never tip a Hail Mary pass, you knock it down. Second of all, that wasn’t his job! His job was the be behind the scrum and not allow Noah Brown to leak behind. But he was out of position because of his nonsense at the sidelines.

I give Stevenson very little credit for his apology tweet. He hid from the media after the game. I’m going to assume (at least I hope) that the coaching staff reamed him out after the game, and that probably led to the apology.

When a kid does something mean to another child, does the parent tell them to write a note and stick it in their locker, or do they tell the child to stand up and apologize to the other child face-to-face? Stevenson stuck a note in a locker. He needed to stand up and take the questions from the media, look into the camera, and apologize to the fan base (one would hope he did that to his teammates in the locker room. One would hope).

Stevenson needs to be held accountable. Of course, they won’t cut him. Will they bench him for the Arizona game? They should. Players need to know that this type of behavior is unacceptable. Isn’t this a HITS principled team? Is T for taunting? I’m confused.

So here we are, at 4-3, with one of the most talented rosters this team has had in a long time and a coach that you simply cannot trust to make the right decisions on Sundays.

These last couple of columns we’ve been excited as we talked about Caleb [expletive] Williams. But now we need to move the expletive in front of the first name. Why did the Bears blow that game against Washington? [expletive] Matt Eberflus.

it is near impossible for a coach to demand or expect accountability from his players when he has no accountability himself ... Eberflus flat out refuses to take accountability for his decisions during this game, thereby adding more evidence to the theory the head coach gig is simply too much for him

[G08]

Eberflus has already overseen 3 historically shocking losses in his time with the Bears.

Well... 4.

3 in 2023 where they had a 90% or higher chance to win (Denver/Cleveland/Detroit) and then yesterday where it was like 98%

I think I saw a stat where there were 4 or 5, immediately felt this: