Kevin Warren admits Bears could’ve handled Matt Eberflus’ firing better

It’s not exactly a state secret that the Chicago Bears mishandled Matt Eberflus’ firing.

It had to happen after his timeout meltdown and subsequent double-down on Thanksgiving Day. No one’s arguing that. The issue at hand, though, is how the Bears relieved Eberflus of his duties, having made him be the face of the team’s press conference only to fall on the sword a few hours later. Needless to say, they’ve been panned by those in sports media, including those who intimately cover the franchise.

Firing Eberflus after having him do his press conference isn’t exactly a sign of a healthy organization. And yet, the Bears are steadfast in keeping on their current trajectory — minus Eberflus, of course — with general manager Ryan Poles getting the dreaded vote of confidence from the organization Monday.

As Poles sat next to President and CEO Kevin Warren during a joint press conference to start the week, reporters asked the latter if he was aware of the league’s perception of how they handled Eberflus’ firing.

“I can tell you this, when Coach Eberflus had his press conference, we had not made a final decision,” said Warren. “And I think you know me; I think you know Ryan; I think you know [Chairperson of the Chicago Bears] George McCaskey; I think you know the McCaskey family. If [there’s] one thing we stand for, it’s family and integrity and doing it the right way. In retrospect, could we have done it better? Absolutely and I’ll be the first one to raise my hand, yes.

“But, during his press conference and even a couple of hours later, we had not reached a decision. But on the flip side of it, something that was important to us is that once we reached the decision, we wanted to make sure we talked to Matt about that so he could have the respect to be able to call his family.

“It happens around the league a lot where a head coach will find out he’s terminated and he finds out before he’s told from the organization — and that’s something we promised that we weren’t going to do. So, in retrospect, could we have done better? Yes. But we were trying to be respectful, and we did not know our decision when he started his press conference.”

Bears were criticized for having Matt Eberflus meet with media mere hours before he was fired Friday. Kevin Warren’s explanation on the timing, including the desire for Eberflus to tell his family before news leaked: pic.twitter.com/fvtLNKbecU

— Jori Epstein (@JoriEpstein) December 2, 2024