NFL Week 13 -- Suddenly There Came A Tapping

The guy in the middle of the fire doesn't share the blame equally. He's a rookie. If the players are responsible for executing AND making such decisions, what is the point of a head coach? It's literally his job to make big decisions in crunch time. When you are tasked with leading a group, being indifferent is much worse than being incompetent. That's as close as you are going to get to watching a head coach quit on his team.

 

Eberflus is a shitty head coach and will get fired at the end of the season, if not tomorrow. He should have called a timeout. He screwed up.

That said... it's not unreasonable to expect a rookie QB to have some basic understanding of clocks and how the passage of time works. He looked like he'd never seen the end of a football game before, let alone played in one.

 

Did you watch the previous two games? He's familiar with late-game situations. I guarantee you he'll take the blame, but he's a 22-year-old rookie. Eberflus is a 54-year-old head coach who has been in the NFL for 15 years. You can't put the end of this game on both of them equally. Williams at least was trying to run a play, albeit too slowly, but what is Eberflus' excuse. He's just standing there. Was he on his phone? There is literally no excuse for him not to call a timeout when he sees the clock running down.

 

Dear god, no.

 

Me silently cackling as a disinterested third party in a Northwest Indiana house full of Bears fans screaming at the screen is a scene I’ll never forget.

 

It would help give you some context for the point you are trying to make. Williams led a drive that should have resulted in a win over the Packers, but Eberflus inexplicably let time run off the clock instead of running another play, and the kick was blocked. He led two scoring drives in the last two minutes to force OT against the Vikings, then the defense let Sam Darnold drive down the field for the winning kick. Today, he led three scoring drives and threw 3 TDs in the first four drives of the second half on the road against the best team in the NFL before making a couple bad decisions on the final drive. He plays hero ball too much, but with a Milquetoast like Eberflus on the sidelines, can you blame him?

 

That's fine. Like I said, I'd be comfortable building around him if I'm the Bears. He has times when he looks brilliant. He has a really high ceiling, and if you're the Bears you have to chase that.

He played really well in the second half today. He also went 5-15 for 34 yards in the first half and gagged away the end of the game. Eberflus absolutely should have called a time out. It's also reasonable to think a NFL quarterback should know not to let the clock run down at the end of the game when you are losing. The coach's failure doesn't fully excuse the fact that Williams couldn't have fucked up the end of the game more if he tried.

 

Williams can learn. Eberflus obviously cannot. I'm with Q here.

 

Well he could have gone 3-and-out on the final drive!

BTW, the Bears have been terrible in the first half all season. They're chronically unprepared. Another issue that can be squarely laid at the feet of the coach. Eberflus seems to have thought that Williams was supposed to make his job easy. He has shown zero leadership. He sets a terrible example for the team, and the end of today's game was the latest example. Hopefully Caleb gets to the next coach without any of Eberflus' stink sticking to him.

Also, forgotten amid the closing debacle is that the Bears had two penalties on the final drive. You can't expect a rookie to save you from yourselves every week. I expect Caleb to learn from his mistakes. He's done it all year. No one expects the same from Eberflus at this point. Sucks that he'll likely have to chance to fuck up 5 more games.

 

Ha! I just finished my last rant with that very thought!

 

I said I was deferring to you all on that one ... I do not know what you didn't get there.

I still think the Commanders brass has to be thanking its lucky stars.

 

Why?