The GM's, Coach's, Carousel

Bears President Kevin Warren: Ryan Poles will remain GM and will hire our next coach

In the wake of the firing of head coach Matt Eberflus, the Bears say they’re staying the course in the rest of their leadership.

Bears President Kevin Warren said that General Manager Ryan Poles will remain in place and will be primarily responsible for hiring Eberflus’s replacement.

“Ryan Poles is the General Manager of the Chicago Bears, and he will remain the General Manager of the Chicago Bears,” Warren said. “Ryan is young, he’s talented, he’s bright, he’s hard working. He has done everything in his power on a daily basis to bring a winner to Chicago, and I’m confident in Ryan. My faith remains strong in Ryan. And as leader of our football operations department, and as our General Manager, Ryan will serve as the point person on our coach, for our upcoming search for a permanent head football coach.”

The Bears have faced some criticism for allowing Eberflus to give a press conference on Friday morning in which he said he expected to continue coaching the team, only to fire him later that day. Warren defended the Bears’ actions, saying the decision to fire Eberflus and promote offensive coordinator Thomas Brown to interim head coach was made on Friday and everyone was informed as soon as possible.

“These are not easy decisions. These individuals have worked hard. Coach Eberflus worked hard,” Warren said.

Warren made clear that the Bears think the No. 1 piece is in place in a young franchise quarterback.
“We have a quarterback in Caleb Williams, who has shown he is very special, and in the right environment, he can become even more special,” Warren said.

Now the Bears need a coach who can bring out the best in their special quarterback.

PFT/Smith

 

Jaylon Johnson doesn’t regret postgame confrontation with Matt Eberflus: Enough is enough

Matt Eberflus may or may not have listened to criticism of him on social media after the loss to the Lions. He definitely heard it from cornerback Jaylon Johnson.

Johnson was frustrated after Eberflus’ time management cost the Bears in a 23-20 loss on Thanksgiving Day, a miscue that cost the Bears coach his job, and Johnson left nothing unsaid.

Johnson said he “didn’t really give a damn” that his postgame confrontation with Eberflus became public.

Eberflus had tried to put a positive spin on the baffling loss that saw the Bears get one play in the final 32 seconds, leaving a timeout unused.

“At some point, enough is enough, just as far as expressing frustrations,” Johnson said on 670 The Score on Monday. “But at the end of the day, I found out through ESPN of the firing first, and then received some phone calls, texts after that. But at the end of the day, this isn’t my first go-around, this is not my first rodeo with firings. This is a business.

“Guys get fired all the time – players, coach, GM. It happens. I don’t necessarily feel like I was just some major part that played a role in getting [Eberflus] fired. That’s not on me. But at the end of the day, there was frustration. There were words from myself that I expressed just from my frustration of losing. Part of what I said after the game is I’ve been losing for five years. So, I mean, I feel like a high-level player like myself, after a certain point, losing games how we’ve been losing games, someone has to express something. It was one of those situations where it just got to that point where you don’t remember everything that was said.”
The Bears have lost six in a row, with four of those losses going down to the final play. Eberflus went 14-32 in his three seasons, including 5-19 in one-score games.

“It was just based around frustrations of losing,” Johnson said. “That’s what triggered it. Just some certain things and seeing the way things had went these last few weeks. From the outside looking in, you can say it’s the last few weeks. For me, it’s the last five years of my damn career.

“I’m used to winning, used to playing the game at a high level, and I haven’t done that since I’ve been in a Bears uniform. For me, just expressing that frustration. It hasn’t been a lack of talent, especially this year. It’s not a lack of talent. It’s not any of those things where I can just say, ‘Well, we have a bad team, a bad roster.’ It’s just little things, certain situations, a certain way of losing that really hurts, and it just got to a point where I was fed up.”

PFT
_______
______________
Im sure Johnson wasnt alone on his thinking and attitude... Eburflus had lost the team a while back and things reached a boiling point. Too bad it took a wasted season for the head-honchos to wake the hell up.