After a sluggish first half of football on Thursday against the Lions, the Bears fought back and drew to within three points as they marched down the field to tie — or take the lead — in the final minute of play.

That’s when hell broke loose and the team botched yet another end-of-game situation, losing 23-20 to the Lions in the Thanksgiving matinee.

On second and 10 from the Detroit 25-yard-line with 43 seconds to play, Caleb Williams completed a strike to Keenan Allen for 12 yards. The Bears were just 13 yards away from the end zone after that catch and looked like they could actually take the lead and steal one from the Lions.

But hold the phone. Teven Jenkins was flagged for illegal use of hands, nullifying the Allen catch and pushing the offense back to the 35-yard-line. 

On the very next play, Williams was sacked when Lions end Za’Darius Smith came untouched around the edge after backup tackle Larry Borom let him unimpeded to his quarterback.

The sack not only pushed the Bears out of Cairo Santos’ field goal range, but also kick-started a wild sequence.

There were about 30 seconds remaining on the clock after the sack. The Bears had one timeout. They had multiple options at that point. They could have rushed back to the line of scrimmage, completed a short pass anywhere on the field to move them back into field goal range, and then used their final timeout to send Santos out for the game-tying field goal. Or, they could have used that timeout to preserve the clock, dialed up the right play to get some yardage back, and then hurried the field goal unit onto the field on fourth down to try to tie the game.

In that second scenario, they could have used the sideline to their advantage to stop the clock, but they also had enough time to use the middle of the field.

But Matt Eberflus decided to use Option A: hurry the offense back to the line of scrimmage to preserve that final timeout for fourth down.

What resulted from that decision was utter chaos.

There was some kind of delay in the process of offensive coordinator Thomas Brown sending in the play to Williams, and the quarterback relaying that to his offense. You would think in that kind of hurry-up situation that it would take maybe up to 15 seconds to line everybody up and get the play called, and then another 5 seconds to actually run the play and complete a pass for about 10 yards. That would still leave you around 10 seconds to call timeout and send out the field goal unit.

Heck, you can even cut that in half and say that 5 seconds left would have done the trick, too.

Instead, what happened was that the play took forever to come in, Williams couldn’t seem to get his guys lined up correctly, then he saw the clock was ticking down under 13 seconds, called an audible to take a deep shot toward the end zone, and then heaved a ball — short of the end zone — where Rome Odunze failed to track it and even make an attempt at it.

The clock expired, and the Bears never got to use that timeout.

Because the game was on Thanksgiving and the whole world was watching, Eberflus’ decision in that final half-minute of play was amplified and scrutinized to the nth degree. Fans, analysts, and even former players and coaches ripped the final sequence, calling it everything from “coaching malpractice” to “a fireable offense.”

Indeed, less than 24 hours later, the Bears made history by firing Eberflus, their first head coach ever let go in the middle of a season.

Had it been me, I would have used the final timeout after Williams got sacked. And that’s not hindsight; I was calling for it — more like shouting it out at the television — during the game.

Listen, as a former kicker myself, I understand the comfort of calmly trotting out onto the field during a timeout to set up for a field goal attempt. So I can empathize with Eberflus’ desire to hold that timeout until fourth down.

However, you have to adapt to the situation. And the Bears were in the middle of a firestorm after that Williams sack. They went from possibly having the ball at the 13-yard-line, and on the verge of taking the lead, to being knocked back out of field goal range with third-and-long and the clock ticking under a half-minute.

They needed to calm the storm, regroup, and get the right play call in. And, they needed to discuss possible ramifications from their third-down call.

Such as: “What do we do if we complete a pass over the middle of the field? We can’t spike it; it would be fourth down. We have to sprint off the field as the field goal unit hurries on.”

Or: “What happens if we throw an incompletion on third down? Is Santos going to attempt a 58-yard field goal or will we need to call a Hail Mary attempt?”

And, God forbid: “What do we do if Williams gets sacked again? What’s our fourth-down call as we hurry back to the line and try to get off a final play?”

There’s a lot to figure out, and asking your rookie quarterback to do a different kind of “scramble drill” was a bit much.

It comes as no surprise, then, that after a national embarrassment of sorts, and yet another game that called into question Eberflus’ game management skills, that the team parted ways with its embattled coach.

Now, the team will get a look at young Thomas Brown, who just three weeks ago was elevated from passing game coordinator to offensive coordinator after Shane Waldron was fired. Brown got promoted again to interim head coach and he will get the opportunity to show what he can do, auditioning not just for the Bears’ head coaching vacancy next offseason but for the rest of the league as well.

The move to Brown comes with its challenges, to be sure. After all, the offense finally got some momentum going once he took over play calling duties. And Williams looked to be developing and heading in the right direction for a rookie quarterback.

Now, Brown not only has to come down out of the booth and call plays from the sideline — if he decides to continue in that role, which presents its own set of challenges — but he will have additional responsibilities as well. He can’t just be focused on his next play call or the next series. He’ll have to manage the clock and oversee the defense, too.

I encourage fans to be cautiously optimistic about Brown moving forward. He may be better organized than Eberflus was, but the offense might also take a hit from the switch. Very few men in the NFL are successful at being both the head coach and the play caller of a particular unit. You can probably count them on one hand. Thus, if Brown proves successful in his five-week audition, he is a serious candidate to be a head coach next season.

As for the Bears, nothing matters more the rest of this season than the continued ascension of one Caleb Williams. I care less about Brown managing this team and winning games than I do about him transitioning to a sideline play caller who can still get the most out of Williams.

Because, frankly, if Brown neglects that part of his duty and Williams finishes his rookie season on a downward trend, I wouldn’t want him to be the Bears head coach in 2025 anyway.