Bears’ Eberflus is “confident” he will work on plan for 49ers

CHICAGO – A day after a 23-20 loss to the Detroit Lions, when Chicago missed a comeback due to myriad tactical problems, Matt Eberflus remains the Bears’ head coach and said he is going through “normal” operations.

Eberflus said he had his routine “debriefing” with Bears general manager Ryan Poles and team president/CEO Kevin Warren after the loss and would meet with both men again Friday afternoon.

Eberflus did not directly answer questions about his future professional status.

“I’m just going to work on finishing this game, evaluating our after-action report well like we always do, and then I’ll go to work in San Francisco,” Eberflus said. “Again, those are conversations we will have and again I am confident that I will work on San Francisco and prepare for this game.”

The Bears players were given the weekend off, which is standard practice when the team plays on a Thursday. Eberflus said he has spoken to several players and plans to reach out to others today. While coaches will analyze the loss on Friday and throughout the weekend, the entire team will reconvene on Monday.

Eberflus came under intense scrutiny after going overtime in the final 32 seconds despite a timeout remaining. Quarterback Caleb Williams was sacked for a 6-yard loss on a called run play, and the Bears didn’t get the ball for another play until six seconds left.

Williams threw a deep ball to rookie wide receiver Rome Odunze, which bounced off the turf inside the 5-yard line as time expired.

“Our decision at that point was to hang on to the ball, keep our timeout and start the playoff after 15 to 10 seconds in that area, throw it there into field goal range, then call a timeout and then to start the game (-equivalent field goal) on fourth down,” Eberflus said Friday. “The operation wasn’t quick enough and we didn’t do a good job at that moment. And that was the decision we made and followed during that time.”

Eberflus said he and offensive coordinator Thomas Brown watched the tape of Chicago’s final drive together Friday morning and discussed what happened in the Bears’ operation.

“I talked to him about all the details of what the calls meant in terms of our whereabouts and I thought the operation was good, just the penalties I thought put us behind the posts a couple of times there,” Eberflus said. “We were in position to score and could have really taken control of the game from then on. But ultimately all of these decisions are my decision. I take full responsibility for this and we failed. It’s unfortunate for the players, for the fans and again we get back to work.

The loss was Chicago’s sixth straight and dropped the Bears to 4-8. Eberflus is now 5-19 one-score games, the worst record of any coach with at least 20 one-score games in NFL history.

The Bears continue their three-game road trip on December 8th in San Francisco.