The Chicago Bears’ Thanksgiving Day game against the Detroit Lions was full of chaos. On Friday morning, Sports Analyst, David Kaplan minced no words while calling out Bears' coach, Matt Eberflus over his controversial play.
Following the Bears' narrow loss (23-20) to the Lions, Kaplan specifically demanded to end David Kaplan's tenure and the statements he passed were quite harsh.
“I told our friend Chris Canty last week, ‘Even if Eberflus wins out, he should be fired,’” Kaplan declared ESPN Radio's signature morning show, on UnSportsmanLike air on Friday morning. “He’s incompetent. His coaching career should be euthanized by 9 a.m. this morning.
"He has no business leading a team in the National Football League. This man needs to be given a box with a check and told, "Get out of our building. Don’t ever, ever darken its halls again. He's not fit for the job."
Eberflus' controversial call happened at the eleventh hour when the Chicago Bears were trailing by three and were within the field goal range. Following this, a sack on second-and-20 pushed them back. Instead of calling a timeout, the team rushed to the line while the clock was ticking.
By the time the incomplete pass of rookie QB Caleb Williams hit the turf, the game clock expired. Naturally, Eberflus’ game management was called into question.
In a post-game interview, as reported by NFL.com, the Eberflus defended his decision.
“Our hope was, because it was third [down] going into fourth, that we would re-rack that play at 18 seconds, throw it inbounds, get into field goal range and then call the timeout," Eberflus said.
He continued:
"I like what we did there. Again, once it's under 12 [seconds] there, you're going to call timeout there, you don't have an option. … To me, I think we handled it the right way. I do believe you re-rack the play, get it in-bounds and then call timeout. That's why we held it and it didn't work out the way we wanted it to."
However, the explanation was not enough and David Kaplan saw no excuse.
"The players are playing hard. We have a pretty darn good roster. We do. We have an emerging star at quarterback who would go 11th if the draft was held again today,” he said.
Chicago Bears showed promise falling into a 16-0 hole by halftime
Although rookie QB Caleb Williams threw three second-half TDs and 256 passing yards, his efforts did not materialize. The Chicago Bears couldn’t overcome the mismanagement.
The last loss to the Lions was the Chicago Bears' sixth straight defeat. Now, whether the team will make major changes before facing the San Francisco 49ers in Week 14 remains to be seen.
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