Bear Digest

Can Bears Repeat Last Season's Rebound from Nightmare Loss?

The three keys to a Bears win can make it possible this week to duplicate what they did last year, when they came off a blown game against Denver and then scored an easy win.

Gene Chamberlain

Kyler Gordon sacks Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray on a slot cornerback blitz last year in a Bears win at Soldier Field.
Kyler Gordon sacks Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray on a slot cornerback blitz last year in a Bears win at Soldier Field. / Matt Marton-Imagn Images
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It's time to give the Bears coaching staff credit.

No, really.

After a week when they took a beating over the Hail Mary pass and the decisions leading up to it on both sides of the ball, they actually did the right thing to get ready for Arizona.

They took a day off with a walk-through because of the physical toll that loss took. More importantly, the theme all week was focusing on the difficult task at hand with the Cardinals.

It's easy to pay short shrift to an opponent which struggled to win in recent years, particularly after your own horrible defeat that can hang heavily over the team like a fog.

But the Bears spoke about the Cardinals all week like a team on the verge of taking over the NFC West, which they very well could do.

The offense treated safety Budda Baker like he was the Terminator.  You waited for one of them to say, "Baker is out there. He can't be bargained with. He can't be reasoned with. He doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutelly will not stop ever." They didn't say it, but close.

"Budda Baker moves around there, he's dropping in from the middle part of the field," coach Matt Eberflus said. "They have a three-safety look mostly in a five-down look and he'll be dropping in. He's not always dropping in, but there will be guys that drop in, and he's mostly the guy that does that.

"When you're spotting out your runs, sometimes that does create a little bit of confusion there. Our guys have done a good job in practice, but again, it's gonna be full speed. It's gonna be a really good player and a really good front because they move it around a little bit. Our guys gotta do a really good job communicating."

The same respect has been paid to Kyler Murray, who the Bears faced last year, and also running back James Conner.

Last year the Bears suffered their most agonizing defeat, blowing a 21-point lead against Denver, then turned around the next week and shook off the hangover and embarrassment, went out to Washington on short preparation for a Thursday night game and routed the Commanders.

Eberflus and staff have to hope something similar happens now for their first road win of the season. They need the win badly.

Here are the keys to doing it.

1. Pass Protect

Whether it's through standard pass blocking, through play-action passing after they establish the run or by moving Williams around, they have to keep their quarterback's feet clean.

Williams has been completely ineffective when under pressure on the road. He has a 57.11 passer rating when blitzed in road games and 45.09 when pressured blitz or no blitz on the road.

The problem with all of this is the Bears offensive line will have a new left tackle as Braxton Jones has been ruled out with a knee injury. Larry Borom will replace him and although he's experienced, he hasn't played all year because he was on IR coming out of camp.

For this reason, the tactics like play-action, establish the run to do this, moving the pocket and using bootleg action will be huge to prevent Williams from being harassed.

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If they give Williams the time, he'll be able to see how they're using Baker and burn the gambling going on within their scheme.

2. Danger Zone

The Cardinals are a nightmare for defenses in man-to-man pass coverage because of Kyler Murray's scrambling ability and also because their receivers are more effective against man coverage.

So opponents hit them heavily with zone.

According to Pro Football Focus, they've faced zone 75.6% of the time.

The Bears defensive scheme is zone and they are top 10 in defensive success rate (50.2) and yards allowed per target (7.4) according to PFF.

The zone situation was also applicable against Washington and the Bears still lost, but gave up only four field goals until the final desperation play. But Washington was better attack zone coverage than the Cardinals.

It's more of the same defensively, as they play strong zone pass defense, and also strong red zone defense as they're No. 1 in the red zone.

3. Time of Possession

This is not just ball control, but actually eating clock as in time of possession. It's big because Arizona's offense can be explosive and the Bears want to keep them off the field.

In Arizona games, the winning team has usually been the team with the big time of possession edge. When they lost three of their first four, Detroit, Buffalo and Washington all owned big time advantages. Of course that normally comes through running the ball effectively.

In their last game, when it was basically a back-and-forth shootout at the end with Miami, this wasn't the case. In the Chargers and 49ers games, the Cardinals came away with wins but the games were headed the same way as the earlier ones in terms of ball control. Then key turnovers cost the Chargers and 49ers and made their ball-control efforts almost a detriment.

For the Bears, accomplishing this is easier said than done. It shouldn't be, but a trademark of Shane Waldron's offense in Seattle was an inability to possess the football. Twice they were last in possession time, next to last in his other season. The Bears have been about middle of the pack in possession time. Shooting for the moon, trying for big plays, should be less important than advancing the ball consistently and scoring.

Waldron might even find that approach helps them score points early in games so they don't have to start off in a hole again like they usually have done.

Twitter: BearsOnSI

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.