Chicago Bears president Kevin Warren proclaimed the team’s head coaching vacancy as “the most coveted job in the National Football League this year” during a Monday news conference, the team’s first public comments since firing coach Matt Eberflus on Friday.
Warren said Ryan Poles, who sat next to Warren during the news conference, will remain as general manager and will be the point person in the team’s search for a new head coach.
The Bears fired Eberflus on Friday, making an in-season coaching change for the first time in franchise history less than 24 hours after a three-point loss to the Detroit Lions in which Eberflus was widely criticized for his clock management. The loss dropped the Bears to 4-8 on the season and 14-32 in Eberflus’ two-plus seasons in Chicago. He was 5-19 in one-score games and 2-13 in the NFC North.
The firing of Eberflus and the promotion of Thomas Brown to the interim job occurred Friday after Eberflus had already conducted a news conference earlier that day. Warren said a decision wasn’t made yet on Eberflus’ job future before the then-coach’s news conference began Friday morning. Warren admitted multiple times that the process that day could’ve been done better.
Brown’s rise from quarterbacks coach to offensive coordinator to interim head coach occurred in less than a three-week span.
More to come with this story.
Required reading
- The Bears finally fired Matt Eberflus. But he lost the locker room long ago
- Bears go from ‘HITS’ to firing a coach in-season: The Matt Eberflus timeline
- For Matt Eberflus and Bears, the numbers didn’t work out. Who figures to replace him?
(Photo: Kevin Sabitus / Getty Images)