Matt Eberflus says Bears handled disastrous final drive ‘the right way’

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In a season filled with gut-wrenching losses , including a Hail Mary defeat , none was more painful for the Chicago Bears than Thursday’s Thanksgiving loss to the Detroit Lions .

It led to some tough questioning for head coach Matt Eberflus after the game.

The Bears looked in prime shape to force overtime at worst with first-and-10 at the Detroit 25-yard line with 46 seconds and two timeouts remaining while trailing, 23-20. From there, the Bears lost 16 yards and ran just three plays.

Chicago got one play off after quarterback Caleb Williams was sacked with 32 seconds left on the game clock. It was a downfield pass that fell incomplete as time expired. Even if Rome Odunze had caught the ball, the Bears wouldn’t have had time to attempt a field goal. The game was over, and the Bears took a timeout with them to the losing locker room.

Matt Eberflus’ explanation

After the game, Eberflus was asked repeatedly to explain the final sequence and why the Bears didn’t use their final timeout. He told reporters that “I like what we did there” and that he was hoping to preserve the final timeout to set up a potential game-tying field goal after running the final play.

“Our hope was because it was third going into fourth [down] that we would re-rack that play at 18 seconds, throw it in bounds, get into field-goal range and call a timeout,” Eberflus said. “That’s where it was. That was our decision-making process on that.

“We were outside the field-goal range. We needed to get a few more yards in there, as close as we can get. And then we were gonna call timeout. That’s why we held that last timeout at the end of the game.”

Eberflus was then asked why he didn’t call a timeout once the game clock ran under 10 seconds.

“We like the play that we had,” Eberflus said.” We were hoping that [Williams] was going to call it — get the ball snapped. And then we would have called time out right there.

“Once it’s under seven there, then you call timeout there, you’re basically throwing the ball to the end zone. Because once it’s under 12, you can’t throw it inside … Read More