CHICAGO — On the day after yet another jaw-dropping loss — this time with one of the more humiliating finishes in franchise history playing out in front of an extra-large and astonished holiday audience — the Chicago Bears leaned into their most straightforward path toward resolution.

Fire coach Matt Eberflus. Tidy up this latest mess. Move forward.

General manager Ryan Poles, with the blessing of President/CEO Kevin Warren, did what almost the entire football world was expecting and practically begging the Bears to do. They showed Eberflus the exit Friday, a move that became official with an 11:58 a.m. news release.

It landed as a logical must-make move, an in-season firing that serves as an attempt by upper management to soothe an increasingly disillusioned locker room. The last of Eberflus’ 32 losses was just too unforgivable to sweep to the side, a 23-20 debacle Thursday that included astounding clock mismanagement in the final minute.

With his final timeout still available, Eberflus froze as rookie quarterback Caleb Williams made a mess of the final sequence, getting off only one snap in the final 32 seconds against the Detroit Lions. It was coaching malpractice of the highest order, made worse when Eberflus defended his inaction in the postgame news conference.

“I think we handled it the right way,” he said, leaving no doubt for many around the league that his time in the head coach’s chair had expired, particularly with the Bears skidding through an incomprehensible six-game losing streak that has no obvious ending in sight.

Thus Friday marked the end for Eberflus after hours of high-level deliberations inside Halas Hall, with Warren and Poles aiming above all else to be thorough, deliberate and fair before they reached a final decision and requested approval from ownership.

To some around the league and within the court of public opinion, the Bears seemed to handle Eberflus’ final day at Halas Hall clumsily, asking him to hold his regularly scheduled day-after-game video conference with media at 9 a.m., mere hours before his dismissal.

But the end result and the methodical process the Bears used to get there registered as the day’s more significant development. For the first time in 105 seasons of Chicago Bears football, a head coach was fired during the season.

At the very least, that historic albeit disheartening move substantiated the power with which the McCaskey family has entrusted Warren and confirmed the authority the second-year president wields in overseeing football operations.

Now Warren has a much heavier lift ahead and must make sure the next several chapters of team history he helps author are accompanied by far more success, starting with the high-stakes search to land a long-term replacement for Eberflus.

The next steps

Around the league, the manner of Friday’s operation came off to some as unnecessarily awkward. Eberflus was the only person in the organization to speak publicly, peppered with 11 questions less than two hours before he was terminated.

Poles offered 66 words within a team statement, praising Eberflus for his “hard work, professionalism and dedication.” That was followed by 63 words from Warren, the most noteworthy ones emphasizing the importance of a head coach in “building and maintaining a championship-caliber team, leading our players and our organization.”

Neither Poles nor Warren was made available for questions Friday and likely won’t address reporters until next week.

“That is unreal,” one league executive said. “If you fire a head coach during the season, someone at the top should speak to it. And immediately. In healthy organizations, you get everything wrapped up quickly. When you have true alignment inside your building, it’s easy to stand up and talk about it.

“And what might be craziest is they took this moment where literally everyone — locally, nationally — was saying, ‘You have to fire Eberflus,’ and would have applauded the decision, and they changed the dialogue to introduce a perception that, ‘Whoa. What a (messed) up place that seems to be.' ”

So now what? And why does all this matter?

First and foremost, the Bears have five more weeks to navigate, needing to find the least bumpy path through the finish line of this squandered season. They will do so with Thomas Brown as their interim coach, a tall ask for an assistant who transitioned into his role as interim offensive coordinator just 17 days earlier.

In the span of three weeks, Brown has gone from passing game coordinator to the “next man up” behind two fired coaches — first Shane Waldron and now Eberflus.

It’s a situation even Poles and Warren would acknowledge is far from ideal. But Brown now becomes one of the point people in charge of retaining the morale of an entire team during this crumbling season.

And as it relates to perception alone, the Bears must convince their players, fans and others around the NFL that they handled Eberflus’ firing with proper grace and a healthy process.

When Poles and Warren speak next week, that should be near the top of their priority list.

“There are a lot more layers involved with these types of decisions than most people think about,” one NFC front-office executive said. “There is a lot to discuss. There are a lot of boxes to check. There are a lot of people to communicate with. And I would imagine Ryan and Kevin were careful not to rush into an emotional decision.”

Sales pitch

The concern around the league, though, is that the Bears’ continued on-field failures and some of the off-field confusion might hinder their chances of making the best possible hire for their next head coach.

For at least some candidates, the organization’s long-standing track record of mediocrity and clumsiness could become a significant repellent.

“Will a big-time coach with options really want to deal with the dynamics that exist at Halas Hall?” one former AFC personnel man said. “And will the Bears truly be able to hook a big fish if you’re also asking him to marry up with a GM whose long-term job security isn’t certain enough to guarantee matching timelines.”

One league source wouldn’t put the Bears anywhere near the same level of deterrence as the New York Jets, whose owner, Woody Johnson, has a reputation for being impulsive and volatile. But that same source believes more than a few head coaching candidates will pursue the Bears job with a long list of questions that will require satisfactory answers.

From the top, Warren will have to offer vision and direction, exuding confidence and optimism that a rapid turnaround is possible.

Across many fronts, the Bears job will remain attractive and be highly sought after — particularly, as one league source noted, given the state of the roster, the health of the salary cap and the presence of a potential young star quarterback.

“They won’t have difficulty selling that as a great job,” the source said.

‘That’s scary for Caleb’

As for Williams, whose talent seems to grow more mesmerizing with each game? Well, he spent the predraft process doing his homework on why the Bears have been so woeful since the late 1980s in finding a path toward sustained success.

Williams was offered reassurance, primarily by Poles, that all that failure was a thing of the past, missteps made by previous incompetent regimes. Now, 12 games into his rookie season, Williams has seen his offensive coordinator and head coach fired 17 days apart.

It would be only human nature for a driven and reflective 23-year-old to suddenly worry that his career aspirations are not in trustworthy hands. To put it bluntly, there’s a big minefield here the Bears have to comb and work diligently to disarm.

“Caleb has to be walking around now with his head on a swivel,” the former AFC executive said. “After all this? He has to be asking himself daily, ‘What the hell do we have going on around here?’ There’s no question he’s going to be a little wary.

“But he was drafted to play professional football. And your job is to show up and be a professional. It’s his job to keep himself in that headspace. But that’s also really hard.”

Bears brass will again ask their young franchise quarterback for his trust and another opportunity to get everything right. It will require a leap of faith.

“That’s scary for Caleb,” the former AFC executive said. “He would have every right to be scared. But he knew this history. He knew he was walking into something in Chicago.”

Another exec, however, offered a reminder that the Bears’ opponent Thursday, the Lions, had their own day-after-Thanksgiving firings just four years ago, with coach Matt Patricia and GM Bob Quinn terminated after an embarrassing holiday loss at Ford Field.

Now their replacements, Dan Quinn and Brad Holmes, have the Lions on the longest winning streak in franchise history and currently the betting favorite to win the Super Bowl.

There is always a path out of the darkness. It’s just imperative, particularly at such a critical stage in franchise history, that the Bears find the right one.

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