Bears rebuild -- again -- after crushing loss
Bears head coach Matt Eberflus met with reporters Monday at Halas Hall a day after his team blew another late lead in a 20-17 loss to the Cleveland Browns.
While the Bears aren’t officially eliminated from a playoff berth with a 5-9 record, a playoff push is all but gone with three games left in the season.
They’ll turn their focus to the Arizona Cardinals, who on Sunday will come to Soldier Field for a Christmas Eve matchup. Here are three of the most interesting things Eberflus said Monday.
On how to fix the offense
When Ebeflus listed off things the team had done well over the last couple of games Monday, offensive success was noticeably absent.
A main reason for that is because the offense has struggled to score points against teams other than the Detroit Lions recently. Fourteen of the Bears’ 17 points against the Browns came off of defensive turnovers while the offense went three-and-out eight times.
One of the keys for Eberflus is to continue taking deep shots in the passing game.
“It’s imperative that we keep taking shots down the field that we took down the field yesterday,” Eberflus said.
Quarterback Justin Fields went 19-of-40 for 166 yards, completing a touchdown to Cole Kmet while throwing two interceptions. Fields completed five passes for more than 10 yards, three for 20 or more and his longest pass of the game came late on a 30-yard pass to Tyler Scott.
The Bears’ inefficiency down the field wasn’t from a lack of trying. Their first play of the game was an attempt to D.J. Moore near the sidelines that would’ve been roughly a 35-yard catch. There was another deep shot down the middle of the first field that Fields placed well but Robert Tonyan couldn’t get control of the ball.
Eberflus placed a high emphasis on deep shots down the field because he believed it will force the defense to back off and open up the middle part of the field. It will also open things up for the running game, which finished with 88 yards against the Browns.
He liked the amount of calls for deep passes Sunday and felt like the Browns gave them opportunities to take them. It’s just about executing.
“When you take a shot, you always have a release thing down underneath,” Eberflus said. “Sometimes we check those things down when they are not there. But you certainly have to take the opportunity and you have to call the play.”
On how to finish games
Sunday wasn’t the first time the Bears blew a late lead. The Denver Broncos rallied from a 21-point deficit to beat the Bears in Week 4 while the Lions came back from a 12-point deficit late in the fourth quarter to beat the Bears in Week 11.
Sunday was different for some of the Bears. Some players felt they went into a lull during Sunday’s game that they led 17-7 heading into the fourth quarter and the loss stung more.
Eberflus felt the best way to break any sort of lull was to take advantage of the moment.
“You’ve got to seize momentum,” Eberflus said. “It’s not about having a lull there and there. Momentum’s going to shift back and forth, right? And we’ve got to seize the momentum back. If the other team gets momentum, we’ve got to seize it back.”
The Bears failed to seize the momentum on different plays.
They faced a fourth and 1 on the Browns’ 33 yard line with a 17-7 lead but couldn’t pick up the first down when Fields was tripped up just short of the first down. The defense forced the Browns to a third and 15 on Cleveland’s 47 but Joe Flacco completed a 34-yard pass to David Njoku that set up the game-winning field goal for the Browns.
The Bears even had a slight chance to tie the game on a Hail Mary as time expired on a pass that bounced off Darnell Mooney.
The Bears have shown they know how to make plays to finish games in the past. But once again, it didn’t happen Sunday.
“Those are really the factors you have in winning in the NFL,” Eberflus said. “When you do it right, it is right. The guys know that. We can’t ever relax with a mindset like that. I don’t believe our guys do that. In fact, I know they don’t. We just gotta keep the hammer down.”
On not losing the locker room
Eberflus remained confident that his team wouldn’t lose its bond after another tough loss. He didn’t plan to do anything differently down the stretch other than longer conversations with the players.
“I’ll have my normal leadership council meeting that I have on Wednesday,” Eberflus said. “I’ll talk to those guys in-depth and we’ll get a plan for the week in terms of how we’re going to beat this opponent coming up and the mindset that we have for our approach.”
The Bears have shown strong resilience many times this season when it could’ve been easy to fold. They won their next games after losing tough matchups against the Broncos and the Lions and won three of four games after starting the season 2-7.
Eberflus remained confident in their approach with three games left in the season as conversations about what’s next for the franchise start.
“We believe in the man next to you, and that’s so important for us,” Eberflus said. “The relationship piece and how hard we work. The guys are tight. We’re just going to keep pulling together. That’s what we’ve been doing all along and we’re going to keep doing that. It’s going to be evident in our work, OK, that we put in for this week, and it will be evident in the play we put in on Sunday.”