After the Washington Commanders’ dramatic win over the Chicago Bears on Sunday, the game-winning Hail Mary from Jayden Daniels largely dominated headlines. But in the days following the loss, a number of Bears’ players openly voiced their frustration about some of the playcalling in the game, including star wide receiver DJ Moore. And that is increasingly becoming a storyline of its own.
Most of the frustration coming from Bears’ players stems of a highly questionable play call from offensive coordinator Shane Waldron.
With a little over six minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, Waldron ran a play where the ball was handed off to offensive lineman Doug Kramer. The play went horrendously wrong, as Kramer fumbled the handoff, with the fumble ultimately being recovered by the Commanders.
The Bears would go on to score later in the quarter anyways to put them in position to win before Jayden Daniels ultimately ripped their hearts out with a Hail Mary as time expired. But had the play never been called for Kramer, there is a real chance the Bears may never have been in the position for the game to come down to the final play.
Earlier this week during an appearance on the Mully & Haugh Show on 670 The Score in Chicago, Moore publicly questioned Waldron’s play call, saying he “didn’t think it would be called in a game like this”.
“I don’t know the reason behind the play call. It’s been up for a few weeks, but I didn’t think we were actually going to get it called in a game like this.”
Moore is not the only player that is seemingly frustrated at the moment in the Bears’ locker room either. ESPN’s Courtney Cronin, who covers the team for the network, alluded to it on Monday’s edition of Around The Horn.
“What I have heard from players over the last 24 hours is something that I typically haven’t in my time covering the Chicago Bears, and that is openly questioning coaching decisions,” said Cronin. “When you go back to the Doug Kramer fumble at the one-yard line, you’re handing the football to the backup center, first carry he has had in the NFL.
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“This is unfortunate for a team that had so much momentum coming into Week 8. Coming off of their bye, they just blew it frankly in a game they very easily could have won had it been for better execution and better coaching decisions.”
It seems like Bears’ head coach Matt Eberflus was well aware of both Moore’s public comments and the reportedly growing frustration from the Bears’ locker room as a whole.
When asked by reporters about his past comments about the play calling during his media availability on Wednesday, Moore hinted that Eberflus seemingly encouraged him to keep his frustration “in house” moving forward. Despite this, Moore did not apologize for what he said, just how he went about it.
“We all talked about it,” said Moore. “Me and Flus’ talked about it with the captains. It’s just got to stay in house next time. I mean, I’m not gonna say sorry for what I said. But at the same time, it should have just stayed in house. But I said what I said. Going forward, that’s probably gonna be what it is. Stuff slipped, I answered the question truthfully.”
Moore didn’t exactly fully admit that Eberflus directly told him to keep those kinds of comments out of the media moving forward. But you can read between the lines here…
Moving forward, it will be interesting to see if Waldron’s seat gets hotter if the team continues to struggle down the stretch.
Through the first eight weeks, the Bears’ offense ranks in the bottom ten in the NFL in both yards per game and points per game. And that is seemingly the biggest thing holding them back from the elite teams in the NFC.
