UPDATE: Matt Eberflus has been fired. (LINK)
I live in Wisconsin, for those who don’t know. Just over the border in Kenosha. We moved here about a decade ago for various reasons. My daughter and I were at the grocery store a couple of days ago, and she was wearing a Chicago Bears hoodie. A couple walked by, and the man nodded at me and said, “Go Bears.”
I nodded back and continued looking through the bread section.
He then went about his own search for a loaf of bread while singing Bear Down Chicago Bears.
Not a line or two. The whole song.
It was a little uncomfortable, I’m not going to lie. We’re both more introverts, but we smiled with him as he pridefully belted out the song.
His wife acted embarrassed and politely told him, “That’s enough, dear.”
But she knew her husband was going all the way. You could see it in her eyes and sly smile.
That’s the type of passion Chicago Bears fans have.
A grown man serenading us with the team’s fight song in Wisconsin on the day before Thanksgiving. A store full of shoppers, likely fans of the local team, and this man did not care.
He wanted the world to know his love for the Navy and Orange.
I thought about that man today when Matt Eberflus held his normal day after press conference.
“I’m confident that I’ll be working on to San Francisco and getting ready for that game,” he said.
This organization watched the Bears lose a sixth consecutive game in another embarrassing fashion — while having literally every national media member call Eberflus out for his ineptitude — and felt no change was needed.
The Bears are the laughingstock of the sports world.
There have been several times in my fandom where an in-season firing was warranted, and I thought this time it’d happen.
I was a fool for thinking the McCaskey family would have the competence to make an obvious decision.
Chairman George McCasky has repeatedly shown that he has no clue how to run a football team.
And if Team Presiden Kevin Warren was on board with the decision, then he’s as useless as George.
If General Manager Ryan Poles stands by his head coach, then he’s just another clown in the ongoing clown show.
If George is preventing Kevin and Ryan from firing Eberflus, then they should resign and distance themselves from this sinking ship as fast as possible.
I suppose there’s still a tiny glimmer of hope they do what’s right because Eberflus said he has a meeting with Warren and Poles scheduled for later today.
Do you remember the timeline in the offseason when they waited a couple of days before even allowing Eberflus and Poles to meet the media? They knew the narrative was that the Bears should fire Eberflus to line up the new head coach with the rookie quarterback, but they remained silent. They wanted to meet and discuss all options.
More recently, Shane Waldron was fired on a Tuesday, again after Bears’ brass met to discuss all their options.
The players are all off this weekend and aren’t due back at Halas Hall until Monday, so I suppose that’s the real deadline.
The Bears are always methodical with their process, but nothing they’ve done in the last 30 years has cleared a consistent way to victory.
As an organization, they’d shown no fearless fight.
They haven’t thrilled the nation in nearly 40 years.
Which is the last time they wore a crown.
And I’m guessing that singing fan is a little less proud of his favorite team today.