Coach Matt Eberflus’ news conferences have turned into courtrooms, and that’s always a sign that things are spiraling.
The interrogations are intensifying. The newest fire he can’t put out is the imminent exit of wide receiver Chase Claypool. The best way to handle a mistake is to be clear-eyed when it’s time to move on, but even when the Bears make the right move, they do it the wrong way.
At a time when the situation needs to be handled with authority and clarity, Eberflus has been all over the place. Let’s circle back to that in a minute.
The latest on Claypool is that the Bears have banned him from Halas Hall and won’t take him to their game Thursday at the Commanders. Common sense says they’re keeping him away until they trade or waive him.
They listed him on their injury report Monday as out because of “other.”
Claypool has been a headache, most recently venting that the coaches are misusing him and daydreaming about playing in a better offense, and has only 18 catches for 191 yards and a touchdown in 10 games with the Bears.
It would be crazy to think he’ll play for the team again.
Back to Eberflus. Between Sunday and Monday, he gave a master class in making a bad situation worse. The public voice of a team must manage this better. It’s as much a part of his job as knowing what to call on fourth-and-one.
He was reeling again Monday even after considering what went wrong in his haphazard explanation the day before.
Eberflus wouldn’t answer whether the plan was to offload Claypool, but no team would exile a player like this unless it was working to get rid of him.
“He’s not going to be in the building this week, so he’s not playing this week, so we’ll see where it goes from there,” he said.
So Eberflus is seriously presenting a scenario in which a player is basically kicked out for two weeks, then comes back?
“All I’m saying right now is he’s not in the building this week,” he said.
He kept dodging questions about why the Bears and Claypool reached this point and how it unfolded leading up to the game. He refused to discuss the phone calls between him, general manager Ryan Poles and Claypool.
Then he was told that it was reasonable to at least explain the factors that led to Claypool being inactive and sent away and gave a veiled response.
“When I came here, Day 1, I talked about being on time, being respectful and working hard,” Eberflus said. “That, to me, is important for every individual — if it’s a staff member, a player or a coach.”
So those are the issues with Claypool: punctuality, respect and effort?
“We have standards for that,” Eberflus said. “And if those standards are met, then everything’s good. If not, then it’s not.”
He could’ve saved some hassle by starting with that.
Claypool hasn’t spoken publicly since Friday, and his agents didn’t return messages seeking comment.
When Eberflus first addressed it Sunday, he seemed unprepared for the blitz about Claypool, and during a series of absolutely clear questions — with no sign whatsoever of him misunderstanding — he said definitively he gave Claypool a choice between attending the game and staying home. He said Claypool opted to skip the game.
Thirty minutes later, a Bears public-relations staffer told reporters Eberflus misspoke and, in fact, he had ordered Claypool to stay away.
How does that happen?
“After the game, you’re thinking about a lot of different things, [and] I was not clear on it,” Eberflus said Monday. “We had the team put it out [and] set the record straight.”
The record is not straight, and that fiasco only left everyone less sure about what to believe.
One person has handled this well publicly, the player who spoke Monday immediately after Eberflus: tight end Cole Kmet. This really shouldn’t be his job, but no one has managed it more commandingly.
Kmet is an old friend of Claypool’s from their time at Notre Dame, and he deftly walked the line between care and accountability when addressing Claypool’s discontent.
“It’s hard to deal with it, but we’ve all gotta be adults about it,” Kmet said. “That can be hard to do when things aren’t going your way and maybe you’re not getting the targets you want and you’re not winning.
“All those things kinda add up and you get frustrated, but you have to be a man about it, be an adult about it and be able to reset your mind every week and just look to improve yourself.”
Kmet could’ve said the situation is above his pay grade and pushed it aside, but he hit it in straightforward fashion. There’s some tape his coach should watch.
Eberflus kept deferring to Poles on whether Claypool is on his way out, but Poles declined a Sun-Times request to speak. That’s a bad look, too. One of Poles’ best traits has been his willingness to be out in front when necessary.
Claypool’s downfall is a devastating blow to him. He got into a bidding war with the Packers and traded a second-round pick to the Steelers that ultimately slotted at No. 32 overall. It’s Poles’ biggest mistake.
There would be a lot of questions for him, starting with whether he did his homework thoroughly before the trade. The biggest red flag was that the Steelers were eager to unload a supposed asset, but there were concerns about Claypool’s toughness, ability to be coached and effort tracing back to pre-draft evaluations.
Those issues have all flared up, and no one’s around to answer for it except a tight end.
