Bears’ Eberflus won’t say how or if he’ll discipline Stevenson for Hail Mary missed assignment

It was the most talked about moment in the NFL in Week 8. On the last play of Sunday’s game, with everything on the line, Bears cornerback Tyrique Stevenson turned his back to the Washington Commanders offense.

He gestured toward fans in the stands. It took the 24-year-old several seconds before he realized that Washington’s Hail Mary play was already underway and that several Commanders receivers were running his way.

Coach Matt Eberflus confirmed the following day that Stevenson should’ve been the one boxing out Commanders receiver Noah Brown in the back of the end zone. Safety Kevin Byard was the defender whose job it was to swat the ball down, but Stevenson took it upon himself to go after the football. In doing so he left Brown all alone in the back of the end zone.

Bears fans are well aware of what happened next. Stevenson tipped the ball right into the hands of Brown for a game-winning touchdown. It was a crushing loss after the Bears scratched and clawed their way to their first lead of the game with 25 seconds remaining.

Asked on Wednesday if the Bears are going to bench Stevenson for his shocking lapse of focus, Eberflus would not give a firm answer.

“I’m not going to talk about Tyrique in terms of starting, not starting, all those things,” the third-year coach said. “But I will say this. Tyrique has made a lot of plays for this group and for our defense and for our football team over the last couple of years, and he’s going to continue to do that. We’re behind Tyrique, and we’re with him all the way, and again, we’ll work through this as we go.”

Stevenson, for his part, said Monday that he let his teammates down. He took accountability for his actions. And he also learned a tough lesson: The game is not over until the clock hits zero.

Benching Stevenson — whether for one play, a quarter, a half, a full game — would send a message to the other 52 players on the roster. As Stevenson said himself, he let his teammates down. What Stevenson did seems to go against everything Eberflus stands for as a coach, the entire H.I.T.S. principle that he has built his coaching philosophy around (it stands for: hustle, intensity, takeaways and smarts).

Asked if Stevenson broke those principles, Eberflus said, “You know the H.I.T.S. principle is based on that. And you can see that coming to fruition with a lot of parts of our team. It’s important that everybody abides by that on every single play. And again, it’s a high standard, and we’ve got to do a good job with that on every single play.”

Just because Eberflus won’t say publicly that he’s going to bench Stevenson doesn’t mean he’s not going to bench Stevenson. Eberflus is highly cognizant of not giving his opponent any extra information. It’s a near certainty that Eberflus isn’t saying one way or another because he doesn’t want the Arizona Cardinals to know who will be starting at cornerback this weekend.

But when the coach won’t say what he plans to do, especially after such a public error, it leaves things open to interpretation of the public. Stevenson and Eberflus have certainly been hammered on the Chicago radio waves and by national television analysts.

Byard, one of eight team captains, said he doesn’t necessarily think any punishment needs to be made public.

“To me, it doesn’t really matter if he does it publicly or anything like that,” Byard said Wednesday. “How him or Ryan [Poles] or anybody deals with discipline when it comes to players, that’s between them and the players.”

It would be a surprise if the Bears totally benched Stevenson. This is a player whom they selected with a second-round draft pick last year. But benching him even just for a few plays might be enough. Backup cornerback Terell Smith returned to action last week after missing a month due to a hip injury. Smith is ready and available.

Asked yet again about whether he’d bench Stevenson, Eberflus said the consequences for Stevenson’s actions were already pretty clear.

“The consequences for things: We lost the game,” Eberflus said. “And it’s important that we now focus on Arizona. And again, that was hard, no doubt. And again, we’re moving on to Arizona and that’s important that everybody does that and that’s my job as head coach to get this group to move on to the preparation for the Arizona game.”

The players have also thrown their support behind their coach. Byard on Monday questioned whether Eberflus played his defensive cards properly on the second-to-last play of the game. The Bears kept their cornerbacks deep and gave the Commanders room to complete a short pass just prior to the Hail Mary.

But Byard noted that different coaches will have different opinions on how to approach such situations. Speaking again Wednesday, Byard called Eberflus “a great coach.”

“I still believe that players believe in him,” Byard said.