Bear Digest

Tight Wins Remain Elusive Ability for Matt Eberflus' Bears

Winning the tight battles is something Matt Eberflus teams have shown they struggle with, and Sunday they'll face the last team they rallied on the road to beat.

Gene Chamberlain

The aftermath of Sunday's game-deciding blocked field goal as Cairo Santos can only stare at a ball deflected by Karl Brooks.
The aftermath of Sunday's game-deciding blocked field goal as Cairo Santos can only stare at a ball deflected by Karl Brooks. / Daniel Bartel-Imagn Images
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If victory in tight games is truly an acquired skill, then the Bears remain mere NFL apprentices after 44 games under coach Matt Eberflus.

Under coach Eberflus they are 5-17 in one-score games. They are 7-6 the last two years in games decided by more than one score, after they were 2-7 in Eberflus' first year.

So, at least it can be argued they found ways to handily beat poor teams because all but two of the nine wins by Eberflus' team by more than one score came against weaker opponents. They beat the Lions last year handily at Soldier fiield 28-13 and won their very first game under Eberflus 19-10 over the 49ers, albeit a Niners team with Trey Lance at QB.

The one-score games don't describe all of their tight battles, either, but their results haven't been much different in those. On Sunday they'll host the only team they ever rallied late to beat on the road under Eberflus, the Vikings.

"Yeah, just like anything—what you did well, what you need to improve on," Eberflus said. "The record's not where it needs to be in one-score games. We know that.

"But again, we're just that far away, too. There's a lot of good things that happened during the course of those games and, again, we've just got to learn how to finish better as a group."

The two tighter wins this year were over the Rams 24-18 and 24-17 over Tennessee in the opener. The win over the Rams was a case of the defense protecting a lead. The win over Tennessee was a miracle one-shot type victory, won without aid of an offensive touchdown and eventually secured with the winning points in the fourth quarter on Tyrique Stevenson's pick-6 and a two-point conversion. Then the defense held on for the victory.

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What the Bears have yet to show is they can drive for go-ahead points at the end of a game and then come away with the win, either by their defense hanging onto a lead or by scoring to end the game.

Caleb Williams did his part in this twice this year, driving them to a touchdown in the closing minutes against Washington and then again Sunday moving them into range to win on a 46-yard field goal. The Hail Mary and blocked kick took away his two game-winning drives.

The only time they have done anything resembling this standard way of winning tight games under Eberflus was their third game of this regime, when they beat Houston 23-20, and last year against this week's opponent, the Minnesota Vikings.

In the win over Houston, Roquan Smith had picked off a pass in the red zone and the Bears' scoring drive merely was falling on the ball and letting the clock nearly expire before Cairo Santos won it. Against the Vikings last year, Justin Fields hit DJ Moore for a pass in field goal range and they kicked the winner after Minnesota had rallied for a fourth-quarter touchdown to retake the lead.

Linebacker Tremaine Edmunds didn't want to call it a case where the team needs to learn to win close games.

It's a good thing because if it was, they'd be considered F-students with a 5-17 record in one-score games.

"I think adversity builds character for sure," Edmunds said. "You learn a lot through challenges and difficulties that you face. This is definitely a challenging time that the team is going through.

"But at the same time, that's what builds us closer together. Nobody is throwing the towel in. We have seven more opportunities. That's all we need is an opportunity to go out there the next week and prove that we are who we say we are. As the whole mindset is now, is less talk about how good we can be, more just about let's come show up on Sunday and let's win one game. It's not about looking in the back, in the past. Not about looking at the next week, it's about focusing in on Sunday and doing what we have to do to be victorious this Sunday."

Considering the remaining schedule they play is the toughest one any team faces, they're going to need to know how to win tight or comeback battles because good teams are not and have not been blown out by the 2024 Chicago Bears.

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.