The Chicago Bears have fired head coach Matt Eberflus following their Thanksgiving Day defeat to the Detroit Lions on Thursday night. 

Eberflus and the Bears squandered the opportunity to take the Lions to overtime by neglecting to call a timeout while trailing 23-20 and seeking to get into field goal range in the final seconds of the game.

It resulted in Chicago suffering their sixth straight defeat as they fell to 4-8 on the year at the bottom of the NFC North.

NFL Network's Ian Rapoport confirmed the dismissal of Eberflus, who becomes the first head coach in the franchise's 100-plus year history to be fired in the middle of a season.

Thomas Brown will now take over as interim coach, having been promoted to offensive coordinator following the firing of Shane Waldron earlier in the campaign.

The firing of Eberflus came just hours after he had outlined his confidence that he would still be head coach in Week 14 while speaking to reporters.

He departs with a record of 14-32 after being appointed as head coach in January 2022 following his time as Indianapolis Colts defensive coordinator.

The Bears had threatened to upset the Super Bowl-chasing Lions on Thursday when they came from 16-0 and then 23-7 down after three quarters to move within three points of Dan Campbell's side thanks to a Caleb Williams-inspired resurgence. But a horrendous example of clock management would cost them and Eberflus as Williams took a sack with 32 seconds left before 26 seconds came off the clock until the Bears finally ran their play, at which point it was too late.

"I like what we did there," Eberflus said after the game. "Again, once it's under seven (seconds), you're going to call a timeout there, actually under 12 and then really you don't have an option because it's third (down) to fourth, you have to throw it into the end zone then.

"To me it's, I think we handled it the right way, I do believe that you just re-rack the play, get it in bounds and call timeout, and that's why we held it and didn't work out the way we wanted it to."

It continued a gruelling run of form that has seen them lose out to a dramatic Washington Commanders Hail Mary as well as to a blocked Cairo Santos field goal as time expired against the Green Bay Packers.

The Bears are now looking for their 18th head coach as they look to maximise the talents of No 1 pick quarterback Williams, who has shown vast improvement under center amid the team's losing streak.