LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — Matt Eberflus’ firing by the Chicago Bears on Friday after the botched finish in a 23-20 loss to the Detroit Lions only slightly impacts the team’s most important goal this season.
Now at 4-8, this Bears season has been all about developing quarterback Caleb Williams as much as possible. Losing their head coach and defensive play caller, with a 14-32 career record, carries less significance for Williams.
Offensive coordinator Thomas Brown has been key in Williams’ improvement and now Brown is the interim head coach besides being the play caller.
It has been apparent since Brown took over as offensive coordinator for the fired Shane Waldron that they had a coach with a more fiery personality than Eberflus.
“I’m a pretty direct person,” Brown said last week about being the Chicago OC.
Brown has never been a head coach but his coaching style was obvious when he took over as coordinator after Waldron’s firing. He’ll try to bring a high-energy coaching style to the full team in much the way he did with Williams.
“So I think that can come off different ways to different people, but he (Williams) is not soft, which I appreciate,” Brown said. “Me and soft people sometimes don’t always see eye to eye, get along.”
In the three games since Brown took over as offensive coordinator, Williams has completed 75 of 117 for 827 yards with five touchdowns, no interceptions and a passer rating of 99.2. Prior to Brown’s hiring, Williams had a passer rating of 81.0 with nine TD passes and five interception.
The 99.2 passer rating came against tougher NFC North opponents.
What Brown needs to work on with Williams and the whole team is obvious after they’ve lost three heartbreakers to NFC North teams and had rallies come up short in each game.
“We’ve been in many of these games where we were down and, you know, came back from 16, 10, you know, all these different scores,” Williams said. “And so, you know, we have belief in ourselves and to be able to go out there and do that.”
Now Brown needs to bring better finishes out of them than they had under Eberflus.
The passing attack. Even with five more sacks and an NFL high of 49 for Williams this year, they managed to upgrade their attack in the second half against Detroit for three touchdown passes. Williams set an NFL rookie record for consecutive passes without an interception, breaking Kyler Murray’s mark of 211. He broke it on a 31-yard TD pass to Keenan Allen in the third quarter. Williams’ mark is now at 232 straight passes without an interception. His five TD passes in two weeks brought his season total to 14, a Bears rookie record.
The run defense. Detroit ran for 144 of its 197 in the first half to pile up its big lead. The Bears have struggled all year stopping the run, but especially after losing defensive tackle Andrew Billings for the year to a torn pectoral muscle in Week 8. They are 30th in yards allowed per rush heading into the weekend’s games.
Keenan Allen. The veteran wide receiver’s five catches for 73 and two TDs upped his total since Brown took over play calling to 200 yards on 18 receptions. He has 44 catches for 441 yards and five TDs on the year.
D’Andre Swift ran for just 39 yards on 11 carries as his yards per attempt dropped below 4.0 for the year.
Right tackle Darnell Wright went out in the second half with a knee injury while Roschon Johnson went out with what was believed to be a concussion.
Williams also suffered a bruised left knee on a hit by Detroit linebacker Jack Campbell but did not need to leave the game.
3 — Eberflus’ Bears teams won three road games and none of them came this season. The last Bears road win came Nov. 27, 2023, over the Minnesota Vikings. They did win in London this year but were designated the home team on that day.
Brown and defensive coordinator Eric Washington will have more than a week to work at their game plan because the Bears are off until their game on Dec. 8 against San Francisco.
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
Chicago Bears offensive coordinator Thomas Brown is seen before an NFL football game against the Green Bay Packers Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration launched military strikes Friday in Syria to “eliminate” Islamic State group fighters and weapons sites in retaliation for an ambush attack that killed two U.S. troops and an American civilian interpreter almost a week ago.
A U.S. official described it as “a large-scale” strike that hit 70 targets in areas across central Syria that had IS infrastructure and weapons. Another U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, said more strikes should be expected.
“This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance. The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on social media.
The new military operation in Syria comes even as the Trump administration has said it’s looking to focus closer to home in the Western Hemisphere, building up an armada in the Caribbean Sea as it targets alleged drug-smuggling boats and vowing to keep seizing sanctioned oil tankers as part of a pressure campaign on Venezuela’s leader. The U.S. has shifted significant resources away from the Middle East to further those goals: Its most advanced aircraft carrier arrived in South American waters last month from the Mediterranean Sea.
President Donald Trump pledged “very serious retaliation” after the shooting in the Syrian desert, for which he blamed IS. Those killed were among hundreds of U.S. troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the militant group.
Trump in a social media post said the strikes were targeting IS “strongholds.” He reiterated his backing for Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who Trump said was “fully in support” of the U.S. effort.
Trump also offered an all-caps threat, warning IS against attacking American personnel again.
“All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned — YOU WILL BE HIT HARDER THAN YOU HAVE EVER BEEN HIT BEFORE IF YOU, IN ANY WAY, ATTACK OR THREATEN THE U.S.A.,” the president added.
The attack was conducted using F-15 Eagle jets, A-10 Thunderbolt ground attack aircraft and AH-64 Apache helicopters, the U.S. officials said. F-16 fighter jets from Jordan and HIMARS rocket artillery also were used, one official added.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees the region, said in a social media post that American jets, helicopters and artillery employed more than 100 precision munitions on Syrian targets.
The attack was a major test for the warming ties between the United States and Syria since the ouster of autocratic leader Bashar Assad a year ago. Trump has stressed that Syria was fighting alongside U.S. troops and said al-Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack,” which came as the U.S. military is expanding its cooperation with Syrian security forces.
Syria’s foreign ministry in a statement on X following the launch of U.S. strikes said that last week’s attack “underscores the urgent necessity of strengthening international cooperation to combat terrorism in all its forms” and that Syria is committed “to fighting ISIS and ensuring that it has no safe havens on Syrian territory and will continue to intensify military operations against it wherever it poses a threat.”
Syrian state television reported that the U.S. strikes hit targets in rural areas of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa provinces and in the Jabal al-Amour area near the historic city of Palmyra. It said they targeted “weapons storage sites and headquarters used by ISIS as launching points for its operations in the region.”
IS has not said it carried out the attack on the U.S. service members, but the group has claimed responsibility for two attacks on Syrian security forces since, one of which killed four Syrian soldiers in Idlib province. The group in its statements described al-Sharaa’s government and army as “apostates.” While al-Sharaa once led a group affiliated with al-Qaida, he has had a long-running enmity with IS.
Trump this week met privately with the families of the slain Americans at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before he joined top military officials and other dignitaries on the tarmac for the dignified transfer, a solemn and largely silent ritual honoring U.S. service members killed in action.
The guardsmen killed in Syria last Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown. Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Michigan, a U.S. civilian working as an interpreter, also was killed.
The shooting near Palmyra also wounded three other U.S. troops as well as members of Syria’s security forces, and the gunman was killed. The assailant had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard two months ago and recently was reassigned because of suspicions that he might be affiliated with IS, Interior Ministry spokesperson Nour al-Din al-Baba has said.
The man stormed a meeting between U.S. and Syrian security officials who were having lunch together and opened fire after clashing with Syrian guards.
Associated Press writer Abby Sewell in Beirut, Lebanon, contributed.
This photo provided by the U.S. Air Force shows a U.S. Airman preparing an A-10 Thunderbolt II for flight from a base in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, Friday, Dec. 19, 2025, in support of Operation Hawkeye Strike. (U.S. Air Force/DVIDS via AP)
President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth salute as carry teams move the transfer cases with the remains of Iowa National Guard soldiers Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, Iowa, and Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, Iowa, and civilian interpreter Ayad Mansoor Sakat, who were killed in an attack in Syria, during a casualty return, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025 at Dover Air Force Base, Del. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth salutes during a casualty return for Iowa National Guard soldiers Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, Iowa, and Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, Iowa, and civilian interpreter Ayad Mansoor Sakat, who were killed in Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, at Dover Air Force Base, Del. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
