Matt Eberflus’ excuses for the Bears blown Hail Mary defense are so dumb they defy belief

The Chicago Bears were two plays away from taking a major step forward amid their rebuild. Instead they’re the laughing stock of the NFL on Monday. At this point their busted coverage on the game’s final Hail Mary has been seen thousands of times, and from every angle — but just as important was the prior play, in which the Bears sat in passive, prevent defense, quite content giving up 13 yards to put Jayden Daniels in range for a last-second heave.

We’re left with two undeniable truths: The Bears’ defense on those two plays was laughable, and the only thing funnier was how head coach Matt Eberflus tried to justify the decisions.

Let’s set the stage here on that final drive. The score is 15-12 in favor of the Bears, it’s the fourth quarter and there are 19 seconds left on the clock starting from the Washington 24 yard line. The Commanders have one timeout left.

At this point there are two defensive concerns if you’re Chicago: Firstly, you don’t want any busted coverage that could lead to a touchdown, with a secondary goal of preventing the Commanders from gaining 35 yards, which would put they inside the effective range of kicker Austin Siebert, which would tie the game.

First down: Daniels takes a shot downfield to Zach Ertz, trying to pick up a bunch immediately. It’s incomplete. There are now 12 seconds left on the clock.

Second down: Daniels passes short to Ertz, this time gaining 11 yards and the Commanders call a time out with six seconds left.

So, with Washington now at their own 35 and having burnt most of their clock the Bears are in a great position. The field goal is effectively off the table, and the entire stadium knows that the Commanders’ only hope is to gain a handful of yards, move into Hail Mary range, and hope to huck it to win.

Well, everyone in the stadium thought this would happen — except for Matt Eberflus.

NO, YOU’RE NOT DEFENDING TOUCHDOWN! THIS MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE!

The Bears came out in a full prevent, giving Commanders’ receivers a solid 15 yards of cushion and without any way of making a play. From their own 35 there is absolutely zero chance that Daniels can throw a Hail Mary, because while he has a good arm, to reach the end zone from the 35 would require a pass traveling roughly 72 or 73 yards through the air — which frankly almost nobody in the NFL can do with accuracy.

That’s before we discuss how getting a scrum down to the goal line takes time, and having the receivers run 65 yards at a sprint, then assemble for a tip drill just doesn’t mesh with how much time Daniels would need in the pocket before throwing the ball.

If you’re worried about receiver YAC they sure, play in a zone — but there’s no reason to run deep pass prevent when it’s clear the correct offensive call is to get a quick out and have time for one last play.

What the Bears did allowed Terry McLaurin to gain 13 yards, putting the Commanders at the 48 yard line now and reducing all the math on that play into a manageable situation. The quarterback now only needs to through about 60 yards through the air to get to the end zone, time is shaved off how long it would take to get receivers in position. Everything is improved drastically.

Somehow, even after losing, Eberflus didn’t think it was a big deal. Meanwhile Washington knew it was secretly the most important play of the game.

What makes this so infuriating is that you have two defensive head coaches in Eberflus and Dan Quinn, but Quinn understands offense better than Flus understands defense. This is a high school level mistake of drive diagnosis, and Eberflus is doing this in the NFL.

Literally all the Bears had to do was defend the boundary … that’s it. If it’s an incomplete pass then Chicago needs to resort to some ludicrous hook-and-ladder type stuff to try and win, which they most likely won’t. If you stop a receiver in bounds the game is over because the clock runs out.

The play before the Hail Mary is the ballgame. Sure, it might not result in a touchdown, but by playing prevent you increase the chances for Washington to win by such an order of magnitude that it’s beyond comical to say the play didn’t matter.

As for questions about the loss as a whole, Eberflus would rather not talk about that.

Yeah, I mean if I screwed up so badly my team lost I’d probably want to deflect and focus on the positives too.

The main issue here is that we’re so far past the phase of “give yourselves a pat on the back” when it comes to Eberflus. Sure, you want to build Caleb Williams’ confidence, but sorry sometimes you need to tear your team a new one. Tyrique Stevenson should be running 100 laps in practice for jawing with opposing fans, rather than facing the line of scrimmage and playing defense. Offensively there should be serious talks taking place on why Caleb Williams’ accuracy plummeted to 41.7 percent and why his yards-per-attempt was 5.5 against a team ranked 22nd in opposing YPA.

Matt Eberflus is now 14-27 since becoming head coach of this team in 2022. We’re two-and-a-half years into this experiment, and it’s still not coming together. The man is out here talking about staying positive and plays not mattering as if fans haven’t been forced to endure two atrocious seasons, with 2024 finally being a chance to take a step forward — and being treated to becoming a laughing stock because you can’t manage to defend the pass correctly for two plays.

This all falls on Eberflus. All of it. I don’t care that he wasn’t on the field for the game-defining Hail Mary, he allowed this to happen through his coaching, his lack of understanding, and being oblivious to the situation.

Get that man the hell out of Chicago.