The Winning Bears Formula Against Packers

Matt Eberflus liked the thought of being a player's coach this past week when it was brought up, that is if he could define what player's coach meant.

Whatever classification Eberflus fits into, his second year begins Sunday with the realization he has been a losing coach. He had the deck stacked against his team last year with a lower level of athlete at many position due to salary cap constraints. They have lost 10 straight, which ties for 66th longest losing streak in NFL history. It's the longest losing streak in Bears history.

He does know what it takes to win, though, given an even playing field. This is what he's looking for against the Green Bay Packers.

"You want to make sure that you're executing," he said. "You want to execute in the rudiments of the game, the fundamentals of the game, keep your penalties down, secure the football, and making sure you're doing the very basics, because that's what wins football games.

"You want to be good in situations. You want to make sure you're hitting all the basic things that you talk about during camp. That's important that the coaches and the players understand that—how we call the game, how we put ourselves in this game, because that's what matters."

It's not exciting stuff, not something fantasy football or analytics people would like to see, but Eberlus knows the sport well enough to realize basics get it done on game day.

"Then you build upon that as you go with your scheme," he said. "I think that's important always in the first game. That's always the way you'll take it.

"If you have a more experienced team that's been together for a few years, I think you may adjust that a little bit, but this is the first time we're playing game speed. We've played some preseason games, but this is game speed. It's different."

The thing about coaches is they speak in generalities so no one can really tell much about their plans.

The Bears have played enough games now under Eberflus to know what their intent is, what they could be strong at doing, and the same is true of the Green Bay Packers Sunday even if they have a different starting quarterback.

Here are the three Bears keys to ending an eight-game losing streak to the Green Bay Packers.

3. The Right Passing Blend

There are targets now for Justin Fields but the Bears won't simply come out winging it all over the place. They need the right blend of passes, a few early deep or the intermediate kind can go a ways toward opening the short passing game. Especially critical are the short passes and screen passes. Fields was not good executing short passes and nearly as bad at screen passes, whether to wide receivers, tight ends or running backs.

The short and screen game can work if the defense is wary about the deeper throws and protecting deeper.

If the Bears get opponents worried about the passing game downfield, it's going to open up the playbook to their shorter game and that paves the way to better passing efficiency they need from their third-year QB.

2. Unpredictability Advantage

The Bears play a defensive scheme with the big label "generic" on it. This isn't to say the Tampa-2 style can't be successful, but it's fairly basic and usually not a guessing game. It's the kind of scheme a quarterback with little experience can enjoy facing. Because Jordan Love has only one career start and very limited experience adjusting in games to disguises and different looks, the Bears can't afford to sit back in their Tampa-2 shell defense and give him the chance to gain confidence. What they need to do is keep him off balance and preserve their edge throughout the game. There are ways to spruce up a Tampa-2 style with different leverages and looks. They can convince the QB he's seeing cover-2 but they could play some other zone or another scheme. They can have linebackers or DBs change up their landmarks so their drops vary to disrupt pass routes.

They can also blitz on occasion out of the slot or the A-gap, or even stunt defensive linemen to throw out different looks. Whatever they do, they don't want to just sit there and play into the hands of a young passer who can't really adjust to different defensive looks the way veterans like Aaron Rodgers could.

1. Don't Turn Over the Football

When Eberflus talked about basics, this is as basic as it gets. It's the first letter in his HITS principle: Take it away and don't let the opponents take it away. It doesn't matter if it's Fields tying for the NFL lead in fumbles last year or throwing an interception to Jaire Alexander or some other defensive back. They can't have turnovers. It would also help immensely if they were taking the ball away on defense, and you have to like their chances of this better now with a scheme designed to cause these, but also with a young QB playing for Green Bay.

Still, it's Bears turnovers that are critical. Fields can't be fumbling as he has done too often in his first two seasons. He has done it 28 times. He can't throw into coverage.

The Bears have lost eight straight times to the Packers and they didn't win the turnover battle in any of those games.

In all eight of those consecutive defeats, they turned it over at least once.

It's actally been nine straight games since they won the turnover battle against the Packers. They haven't won the takeaway battle in a game with the Packers since 2018, the game in Lambeau Field when they lost anyway by blowing a 20-point lead.

It's basic football but winning football not to turn it over.

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