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Courtney Cronin, ESPN Staff WriterDec 2, 2024, 03:53 PM ET
- Courtney Cronin joined ESPN in 2017, originally covering the Minnesota Vikings before switching to the Chicago Bears in 2022. Courtney is a frequent panelist on Around the Horn and host of Best Week Ever on ESPN Radio. She also co-hosts The Chicago Bears Podcast on ESPN 1000. She previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News as a multimedia sports journalist.
LAKE FOREST, Ill. — Three days after the Chicago Bears changed course at head coach by firing Matt Eberflus following a 23-20 loss to the Detroit Lions, the organization has decided to retain the rest of their football leadership moving forward.
Ryan Poles will remain the Bears’ general manager, team president and CEO Kevin Warren said during a Monday news conference. Poles will serve as the “point person” and lead the team’s search to find its next head coach, according to Warren.
“Ryan is young. He’s talented. He’s bright. He’s hard-working,” Warren said. “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.”
Poles said the Bears have not decided on whether they will use a search firm to find their next head coach, which would be the 17th in the franchise’s 105-year history. Warren confirmed that Poles will have the final say on who is hired.
Poles and Eberflus were hired together in Jan. 2022 when they replaced former GM Ryan Pace and coach Matt Nagy. The Bears embarked on a massive rebuild that began with a roster teardown ahead of a 3-14 season in 2022 followed by a 7-10 finish in 2023.
After using the No. 1 overall pick to draft quarterback Caleb Williams in April, the Bears were primed to take a step forward in 2024 — which began with a 4-2 start. Since then, Chicago lost six straight games, four of which were decided by one score.
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“I want to thank coach Eberflus for his efforts and his dedication while he was here, but at the end of the day, we just came up short too many times and we had to make a change,” Poles said. “As I reflect back two years ago, I was proud of the progress that we made from year one to year two, but disappointed we weren’t able to stay on that track in year three.”
Poles said he saw “frustration” in the Bears locker room after the loss to the Lions, which led to Eberflus’ departure last Friday. Roughly 2.5 hours after Eberflus did his normal day-after media availability virtually, the Bears brass informed the 54-year-old coach that he was being fired.
That sequence of events drew wide-spread criticism of how the Bears handled Eberflus’ firing, which Warren said was not decided upon by the time the former head coach had his press conference around 9 a.m. CT.
“In retrospect, could we have done it better? Absolutely, and I’ll be the first one to raise my hand, yes,” Warren said. “But during his press conference and even a couple hours later, we had not reached a decision.
“But on the flip side of it, something that was important to us is that once we reached a decision, we wanted to make sure to talk with Matt about that so he could have the respect to be able to call his family. And I’ll say this, one thing that happened, this is the first time, and it happens around he league a lot where a head coach will find out he’s terminated and he finds out before he’s told from the organization, and that’s something that we promised that we weren’t going to do.”
Bears offensive coordinator Thomas Brown was promoted to interim head coach following Eberflus’ departure. Brown, 38, will now coach on the sideline while continuing to call plays. Wide receivers coach Chris Beatty has been promoted to offensive coordinator while defensive coordinator Eric Washington will take over the play calling duties previously handled by Eberflus.
Brown took responsibility for his role in the handful of late-game blunders that have plagued Chicago in four losses decided on the final play (Washington, Green Bay, Minnesota and Detroit), including the disastrous sequence that took place against the Lions with 32 seconds left that ultimately led to the clock running out on Chicago’s attempt at a comeback.
“I know there was a lot of scrutiny, talk, dialogue about what has happened at the end of some of these games,” Brown said. “I am not exempt from responsibility in those actions, because we’re a team. I believe in doing things together. We get rewarded together; we also get criticized together.”
The Bears have a five-game sample size to evaluate Brown as a head coaching candidate, which begins in Week 14 when Chicago faces San Francisco on the road. Maintaining continuity around Williams is something Poles said the Bears have to consider when deciding how they will choose their next head coach.
“[Williams’] development is critical, so we need to make sure there’s alignment in that space so he can continue to get better,” Poles said.
Does that mean the 23-year-old quarterback will have input on who Chicago chooses to permanently replace Eberflus?
“I don’t know about specific input, but it’s got to be a major part in the interview process of making sure that there’s a plan for a young quarterback in this league,” Poles said.
