Circus maximus: Matt Eberflus is fired in the most bearish way ever

I don’t know what kind of business the McCaskeys run, but it’s not an NFL franchise.

A legitimate professional football team doesn’t allow its sorry head coach to hold a press conference the morning after a terrible loss and then fire him hours later. That’s what the Bears did with Matt Eberflus on Friday. But don’t confuse incompetence with coldness. This wasn’t cruelty. This was the typical Halas-Hall density.

A serious professional football team won’t bring back players like Eberflus for another season after he posted a two-season record of 10-24. That’s what the Bears did after last season, and the original sin of retaining Eberflus led to all of this season’s spectacular sins. This led to the greatest sin of all: Eberflus’ decision not to call a timeout on Thursday as the clock was excruciatingly running down and the Bears needed a decent finish to have a chance of tying the game against the mighty Lions.

This egregious mistake was apparently enough to jolt team chairman George McCaskey out of his frothy memory existence and into something similar. Or maybe it was Eberflus’ continued insistence that the Bears’ plan was sound late in the Detroit game. Perhaps this bizarreness finally brought McCaskey to some consciousness.

In a rare moment of clarity, the family did something the Bears had never done in their 104-year history: They fired their head coach midseason. Believe me, there were more than a few Bears coaches who deserved to be fired midseason, but because of some strange organizational allegiance to civility, decency or economics, the Bears have always said no to change.

They did it on Friday, but in typical McCaskey fashion, they dropped the ball before crossing the goal line. They allowed Eberflus to meet with reporters via Zoom that morning and once again make a fool of himself by trying to defend the indefensible. It’s incomprehensible. They didn’t make Eberflus a likeable character. They’ve just become a little more pathetic themselves.

It’s just breathtaking, this incompetence. You don’t think it can get any worse, and then you stop: not only can it get worse, it most likely will get worse. These are the bears.

Admittedly, going even further downhill will be a tall order. The current six-game losing streak includes Bears defenseman Tyrique Stevenson destroying his team by taunting Washington fans while Jayden Daniels’ game-winning “Hail Mary” pass is in the air. It includes consecutive weeks of blocked field goal attempts, the first after Eberflus opted for a 46-yarder instead of an extra play to make it easier for kicker Cairo Santos. This also includes Eberflus’ failure to take a timeout on Thursday, an attack on football sensibilities everywhere. Even slimy Jim Nantz, whose sweat glands secrete syrup, called the final bit on the CBS broadcast “completely botched.”

There is nothing in the history of the McCaskey ownership that suggests a bright future. Well, sure, just getting rid of Eberflus seems like a positive thing. The Bears are 4-8 and would be much better if the coach hadn’t made the poor decisions. Goodbye, right? But the team’s record of bad head coach hires under the McCaskeys makes it more than likely that another bad coach is on the way. The Bears named offensive coordinator Thomas Brown as interim coach.

Please don’t tell me that President Kevin Warren and General Manager Ryan Poles will find the right guy. The McCaskeys hired Warren and Poles. Please don’t tell me the Bears are looking for outside consultants to help them find a coach. The McCaskeys will hire these consultants.

The only coach out there who might be McCaskey-proof and who might not be marred by decades of institutional ineptitude is Bill Belichick. It’s hard to imagine the Bears giving him control of the entire operation because that would mean reducing Poland’s role. That’s not how the McCaskeys do it, but let’s see: a coach who has won eight Super Bowls versus a general manager who has been in his job for more than two seasons.

A good NFL franchise is about winning, not about how the organizational flowchart should work. I don’t know if Belichick would be a good fit with quarterback Caleb Williams, but I think Belichick could put aside some of the McCaskey nonsense that has resulted in the franchise making just nine playoff appearances since the 1990 season.

Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson is the hottest head coaching candidate this season. When you examine how the McCaskeys have done business over the last four decades, you see several possibilities: If the Bears hire Johnson, he will be a flop. Otherwise he will be missed. Or he spontaneously combusts on national television.

Something. It’s always something. Something other than winning.