Bears general manager Ryan Poles got it wrong on Matt Eberflus — multiple times — and looked like someone who was still reeling from it as he sat next to his boss Monday.
While team president Kevin Warren proclaimed the rebound from firing Eberflus a momentous occasion, Poles was listening to him hammer the biggest hire of his career.
“We just came up short too many times and we had to make a change,” Poles conceded.
Poles whiffed three times on Eberflus.
Perhaps he deserves grace for the first, which was hiring him in January 2022. The Bears started interviewing candidates weeks before they hired Poles and appeared to have already selected finalists without him.
He said he had freedom to restart the whole process and chose Eberflus independently, but there was at least indirect influence from chairman George McCaskey’s five-man committee as Poles hired Eberflus two days after he got the job.
The bigger misjudgment was keeping Eberflus after the 2023 season. Poles drew overinflated optimism from the defensive uptick and 5-3 record in the second half and didn’t realize the Bears’ epic collapses then were an omen of more to come under Eberflus.
In his quest to get everything right in onboarding No. 1 pick Caleb Williams, a quarterback he believed would be a franchise-changer, he missed terribly in retaining Eberflus and hiring offensive coordinator Shane Waldron. Poles was heavily involved with Eberflus in choosing Waldron, who was fired after nine games, and gave little explanation for the error Monday.
Strike three for Poles came when they canned Waldron after losing to the Patriots on Nov. 10. Eberflus should’ve gone, too.
He was 14-29 then, had multiple flubs on the field and at the podium, had three coordinators exit and was spiraling in the wake of miscues at the end of the Commanders game. Plus, players had been voicing complaints about coaching since September.
The Bears were 4-5. The season still could’ve been saved. They lost three more games, and now it’s cooked.
“It’s hard to go back and figure out if everything would’ve been different,” Poles said of firing Eberflus earlier. “There’s times where you’ve got to see what the issues are… and [are they] repetitive enough to make a move at that time?
“We started going down this recent path where things started getting a little bit more repetitive, and that’s when we got together and had that conversation.”
But anyone could’ve taken that approach. NFL general managers need to see trouble coming and avoid it, and Poles absolutely had enough datapoints after two-plus seasons to move more quickly.
Poles was in Detroit when the consequences of his inaction materialized, first on the field as Eberflus botched the clock and cost the Bears a chance to at least force overtime, then in the locker room. He saw the players’ backlash toward Eberflus, which had been bubbling for weeks, erupt to the point of no return.
His overarching responsibility now is to see the future more clearly than he did with Eberflus. While Warren cemented his job as safe for the upcoming offseason, there’s no guarantee beyond that. They’ll lead the search together, but Warren was clear to put the onus on Poles to make the final call.
If Poles gets it wrong on the next coach, they’re probably leaving together. That possibility presents something he and Warren must navigate with coaching candidates who will be cautious about stepping into the instability of potentially mismatched timelines.
“We’re open to talk through that,” Poles said. “That shouldn’t be an issue at all.”
It won’t be that simple. Coveted candidates have options, and they’ll be eager to know exactly how shaky this one is.
The higher someone moves up the ladder, the more responsibility they encounter. Eberflus proved his job was too much for him. Poles is facing his last shot to show that’s not true of him.