The Chicago Bears improbably lost another game on the final play Sunday, as Cairo Santos’s go-ahead field goal attempt was blocked by the Green Bay Packers. The 20-19 loss drops Chicago to 4-6 on the year and has brought head coach Matt Eberflus under heavy fire for his late-game decision-making. Again.
Earlier this year Eberflus was hammered for a defensive play-call that helped the Washington Commanders pull off their amazing Hail Mary as time expired in a devastating loss for the Bears. On Sunday, it was his choice to not try to get Santos any closer on his 46-yard field goal attempt that garnered significant criticism.
To put that decision into context, the Bears had the ball at Green Bay’s 30-yard line with 35 seconds left. The Packers had no timeouts, while Chicago had one. Therefore the Bears had a very good opportunity to try and pick up a few extra yards via a pass play. In fact, they could have called multiple plays with one timeout. Instead, Eberflus apparently decided it wasn’t that important to gain those yards. C
Chicago called a run play that gained two yards and, instead of calling a timeout to try and gain a few more, Eberflus let the clock run until there were three seconds left on the clock. Santos’s attempt was blocked and it was game over.
Bears fans are very unhappy with the sequence.
Plenty of harsh sentiments there but it is an incomprehensible decision to not at least try to gain a few more yards. Eberflus isn’t calling plays for the offense after firing coordinator Shane Waldron, but as head coach everything runs through him and he is supposed to have better situational decision-making than this.