Matt Eberflus must succeed in 2 key areas for Bears to make playoff push after bye week
Matt Eberflus will need a lot more than three consecutive wins against three of the NFL’s worst teams to solidify the credibility he’s sought ever since the Bears hired him as a first-time head coach in 2022.
It’s a respite from the steady stream of criticism and doubt, and while it’s a very low bar, this is by far the best the Bears have been positioned since his arrival. The streak is the longest of his tenure, they’re 4-2 and quarterback Caleb Williams is pointed the right direction.
We’ll find out very quickly how real all of that is. The Commanders look like the Bears’ strongest opponent since losing to the Texans in Week 3, and it’s time to establish some legitimacy. They’ve beaten up on lightweights, proving they’re no longer in that classification, and now they must take the next step by knocking out a team on their level.
And as much hype as there will be about Williams going home and facing the quarterback the Bears bypassed in favor of taking him, No. 2 pick Jayden Daniels, it’s an incredibly meaningful matchup for Eberflus in a similar light. The Bears chose him over Dan Quinn, who went back to the Cowboys as defensive coordinator for a couple seasons before taking the Commanders job this year.
Quinn and Eberflus began coaching in the 1990s, and Quinn has always been a step ahead. He got his first NFL coordinator job in 2013 with the Seahawks, five years before the Colts hired Eberflus. The Falcons hired Quinn as head in 2015, and this already is his seventh at that level. He’s been to the playoffs twice, a Super Bowl once and never had fewer than seven wins in a full season, which to date is Eberflus’ career high.
The upcoming three-game stretch in which the Bears will visit the Commanders and Cardinals before hosting the Patriots is pivotal to their season. Those three games are the last of their margin in a schedule that turns sharply more difficult in the second half.
It’s imperative that they play well against the Commanders, win an always challenging road game against Kyler Murray and the Cardinals and hammer the rebuilding Patriots. There’s no telling, by the way, how important a head-to-head tie-breaker could be for the Bears and Commanders in January.
If they take all three — A six-game winning streak? — and go into their Week 11 game against the Packers at 7-2, they’ll be in an ideal spot for the next challenge: Making a playoff push as they go through a gauntlet of all their NFC North games, the 49ers and Seahawks over the final eight weeks.
If they regress and let winnable games slip away, as they did in a loss to the Colts in Week 3 that left a scar, they’ll have little chance of making up ground down the stretch.
For Eberflus, that means exceling on two key tasks: Keep Williams trending positively and continue to adjust and improvise defensively. Those goals are tightly intertwined.
The Bears’ defense has been terrific so far and held every opponent to 21 points or fewer, which means every game has been there for the taking if the offense played respectably.
Going into Sunday, the Bears had allowed the fifth-fewest points per game at 16.8 — nearly a full point better than their monster 2018 season — and were second in the league with 13 takeaways. They were top-seven in third-down defense, opponent passer rating and sacks.
That’ll be tough to maintain against Daniels. And Murray. And eventually the Packers, Lions, Vikings and others. It’s tougher still if Eberflus has to manage injuries, and he currently can’t be sure of three ailing starters in the secondary: cornerback Tyrique Stevenson (calf), nickel Kyler Gordon (ankle) and safety Jaquan Brisker (concussion).
While being the head coach comes with far more responsibility than just running one side of the ball, Eberflus has three decades of defensive expertise on his resumé and needs to flex in that department. The Bears need to get a lot right to make the playoffs and one day vie for a championship, but it should always be a hallmark under Eberflus.
The offense is where he has needed to grow, and there are subtle signs this season that he has. While he never figured out how to rewire the disconnect between Justin Fields and Luke Getsy the last two seasons, he vowed to get more involved in the offense after that Colts game, and there’s been an obvious turn in offensive coordinator Shane Waldron’s play calling since.
Their scoring jumped from 17.7 points per game in the first three to 31.7 over the next three, their yards per play spiked from 3.7 to 5.8 and third-down conversions went from 33.3% to 38.7%.
Those numbers won’t necessarily hold against stronger defenses — of their final eight games, seven are against teams ranked 12th or better in points allowed — but some elements of what has gone right for Williams and the offense lately should transfer.
He’s reading defenses more quickly and clearly, his recognition is improving, he’s asserting himself with teammates and coaches and his throwing accuracy is much better. The offensive line also has held up better and has reinforcements on the way, although it’s hard to know for sure if that will continue.
There’s nothing more important than Williams. The Bears will be saying that for a while, and their overall trajectory depends on his progress.
But the short term hinges on it, too.
The potential improvement at quarterback is an incredible wild card for Eberflus this season with a roster that’s otherwise playoff-ready. The Packers saw it when Jordan Love took off last season and vaulted a 2-5 team to within minutes of reaching the NFC title game.
That won’t just happen. Eberflus has to engineer it. And given that he might be out if the Bears miss the playoffs, he has a lot on the line the next three weeks.