Bears Film Study dissects final moments of Eberflus era

For this week's Bears Film Study, maybe we should start with Monday's news conference containing Ryan Poles and Kevin Warren reflections on the decision to fire coach Matt Eberflus.

Making Eberflus conduct a morning Zoom call with reporters, then firing him a few hours later was a bizarre sequence. It suggests management didn't plan on making a switch, then took the temperature of various national talk shows and changed their minds.

Look, it was either going to happen now or after the season anyway. If the Bears wanted to wait for the season to end, they could have insisted the team is performing well, after competing with conference rivals until the final play three weeks in a row.

On Thanksgiving Day in Detroit, the Bears made an impressive flip from a miserable first half. Not calling a time out and letting the clock run out at the end was an incomprehensible coaching blunder.

But a couple plays earlier, Caleb Williams completed a pass to Keenan Allen at the 12-yard line with 43 seconds left. If Teven Jenkins hadn't ripped off Alim McNeil's helmet and gotten an illegal hands to the face penalty, the Bears would have been thinking winning touchdown, not sending this one to overtime.

So that was a bad mistake at the wrong time, because the offensive line played reasonably well in this game. Not great, but better than it has been. Alas, on the next play after the penalty, fill-in right tackle Larry Borom never even tried to block the Lions' best pass rusher, Za'Darius Smith, and he landed an easy sack.

Jaylon Johnson went on the radio this week and said these close losses aren't about talent. Well, talent was a huge factor. Three Detroit offensive linemen have been to the Pro Bowl and the Lions rushed for 194 yards behind a powerful 1-2 punch at running back. The Lions probably should have stuck with middle runs instead of trying to be diverse on offense.

All things considered, an argument can be made the Bears overachieved in this game, until the awful three-play sequence that sealed the loss. They lost by three to a team that's 11-1.

Best play

The play that woke up the Bears’ offense was a third-and-14 on the opening drive of the third quarter. The Lions sent four and the Bears offensive line held off the rush. Williams got a little antsy in the pocket, looked at Rome Odunze short over the middle, but he never would have gotten the first down.

Then something happened that Williams can tuck into his memory bank. He brought the ball down and started to run. When that happened, Detroit safety Brian Branch took his eyes off Allen, thinking Williams was about to run. Allen kept moving, waved his arms to help get his QB's attention and just before hitting the line of scrimmage, Williams fired a fastball into Allen's chest for 18 yards. Two plays later, Allen caught the 31-yard touchdown.

On the Bears' final touchdown drive, Williams aborted another run and found D.J. Moore for 14 yards.

Great example

Early in the game, the Lions provided a nice example of how to send three receivers in a pattern and get one of them wide-open. That's something the Bears have struggled to do.

Tim Patrick set a pick for Amon-Ra St. Brown as both ran crossing patterns. This move does not draw a flag, because Patrick runs past Tyrique Stevenson, just close enough to cause him to lose a stride. This is much different from the Bears' version, when Cole Kmet (twice) stopped and set a basketball-style pick on the opposing DB. That's literally asking for a flag.

Anyway, after the pick, St. Brown curled and headed deep instead of staying on the crossing route. It took a few steps for Stevenson to change direction and now St. Brown was wide-open for a 29-yard gain. Of course, Jared Goff needed time for this to develop.

Big hitters

Kyler Gordon had another nice game for the defense. There were two huge plays that kept the Bears within striking distance. Detroit has second and goal at the 4 when Gordon fired through a gap on a run play, which forced St. Brown to tackle him and get holding penalty. That set up a field goal to make it 13-0 instead of a TD for 17-0.

The other game-saving play was Stevenson's forced fumble on Jahmyr Gibbs near the goal line.