With every passing day, fans of the Chicago Bears become more glad that their favorite team traded in their old broken-down Matt Eberflus and upgraded to a shiny new Ben Johnson.
Even though the fanbase was out on Eberflus long before the Bears finally pulled the plug on his tenure on Black Friday, it wasn't until recently that we all found out just how dysfunctional his reign really was. Players up and down the roster have been all too glad this offseason to let anyone within earshot hear their true feelings, while at the same time praising Johnson for changing the culture in such a short period of time.
That's not to say that we didn't have some clues last year, too. Jaylon Johnson reportedly lit into Eberflus in the locker room after the embattled coach once again botched a late-game clock situation in a Thanksgiving loss to the Lions. His inexplicable decision to not call a timeout before the Commanders beat the Bears with a last-second Hail Mary a month earlier also caused some players to speak out.
Now that Eberflus is out of the Windy City, the floodgates have opened. Kyler Gordon seemingly alluded to Eberflus' ineptitude when asked after that Thanksgiving loss if there was an underlying reason for so many close losses. "Next question ... no comment," he said after an uncomfortably long pause. In an interview with The Stretch podcast last week, Gordon was asked if it was as weird in the locker room last year as it looked on TV, and he confirmed it was by laughing and saying, "For sure."
It's bad enough that Eberflus, a defensive coach, was looked upon so poorly by his defensive players, but we've found out recently that the way he handled the most important position on the field was much worse.
Matt Eberflus failed the Bears in every way
ESPN reporter Seth Wickersham's upcoming book, American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback details how Caleb Williams sought to avoid going to the Bears, saying he even went so far as to look into ways around the draft entirely. The presence of Eberflus and former offensive coordinator Shane Waldron was a huge reason for his skepticism, and he was proven right.
In the book, Williams is quoted as saying he would watch game tape by himself, with no help from the coaching staff. "No one tells me what to watch," he said. "I just turn it on." This is an insane lack of leadership on Eberflus' part, and it speaks incredibly well on Williams that he managed to play so well in his rookie year when he had no support from the coaching staff.
Backup quarterback Tyson Bagent threw some more dirt on Eberflus' grave last week when he was asked to compare the current coaching staff with the former one.
By now, this kind of comment is hardly a surprise, but it's still incredible just how unanimous the Bears have been in rejecting the way Eberflus ran the team. It also shows what a good first impression Johnson has made on the roster for doing things so differently.
And if you don't take the players' words for it already, the contrast in OTAs between Johnson and Eberflus couldn't be more stark. Whereas things were out of sorts previously, Johnson is making sure the ship in Chicago is run tightly — and maybe even to perfection — as he stopped practice with a whistle multiple times when something wasn't being done correctly or to his liking.
Perhaps more than any other sport, coaching is incredibly important in the NFL. The Chargers were 5-12 in former head coach Brandon Staley's final season, then improved by six wins and made the playoffs when Jim Harbaugh took over last year.
Eberflus and Staley have a lot in common, most notably their propensity for letting close games slip away. If Johnson is the real deal (and early indications are that he is), a similar glow-up isn't out of the question for the Monsters of the Midway this year.