INDIANAPOLIS — Even with three decades of experience before the Bears hired him, Matt Eberflus still is learning on the job as a relatively new head coach. That means his approach to preseason games, practice schedules and other things likely will keep evolving as he establishes himself.
Eberflus tacitly acknowledged that leading up to his team’s 24-17 loss to the Colts in a preseason game Saturday, when he sat almost all of his starters on the grounds that they had gotten game-like work during two joint practices with the Colts. This might not happen every year, he said.
‘‘You have a plan . . . but you also have to feel what’s going on with the team, what’s the morale, what’s the injuries, the age of your team,’’ Eberflus said after the game. ‘‘It’s very fluid, and you have to be able to [adjust] with education and talking to the players.’’
He also has made an intriguing shift in how he’s spending his time in practices and meetings this season. Eberflus was preoccupied with the offense last summer as he tried to build a relationship with quarterback Justin Fields and verse himself in coordinator Luke Getsy’s terminology, but now he’s splitting his time evenly with the defense.
As a CEO-style head coach, that’s ideal. And the ability to oversee every aspect of the team in that role is one aspect that makes him different from predecessor Matt Nagy. Nagy often seemed a little out of the loop when talking about issues on defense and special teams, not that he ever had much of an explanation for the offense’s maladies, either.
Whereas Nagy was the de facto offensive coordinator as head coach, Eberflus gives his coordinators autonomy. He has input and final say, of course, but he described it as trying to ‘‘be helpful’’ to Getsy, defensive coordinator Alan Williams and special-teams boss Richard Hightower.
Eberflus wouldn’t be able to run the team at large effectively if he was overly involved on defense, which is where he built his career as an assistant.
‘‘Having a 50-50 split is really where I want to be,’’ Eberflus said before the game. ‘‘I want to be the head coach of the entire football team. And now that I have a better understanding of [the offense], I’m able to do that.’’
There’s no guarantee that will lead to better results than Nagy or any other coach who zeroes in on his specialty, but it’s a logical way to approach the job.
Incidentally, it makes Eberflus’ defensive expertise more valuable. As much as chairman George McCaskey and general manager Ryan Poles thought Eberflus checked every box, there’s little chance he would’ve been considered for any head-coaching spot if he hadn’t been so brilliant as the Colts’ defensive coordinator in 2018-21.
This was Eberflus’ first game at Lucas Oil Stadium since the Bears hired him over fellow finalists Dan Quinn and Jim Caldwell. When he left, the Colts were the No. 10 defense in the NFL and had three defenders in the Pro Bowl. In his four seasons, they allowed the 10th-fewest points, forced the second-most turnovers and gave up the third-fewest yards per carry. They held their opponents to 21 points or fewer 31 times in 65 games.
Not bad after he inherited the third-worst defense in the league.
That experience should be useful as Eberflus and Williams try to orchestrate a similar turnaround for the Bears, whose stripped-down roster allowed the most points in the NFL last season. It helps that Poles added talent — linebackers Tremaine Edmunds and T.J. Edwards and defensive end Yannick Ngakoue — instead of subtracting it, but it also helps that Eberflus will contribute more defensively.
“It’s fun to get back into there, and it’s fun to grow that relationship with Alan,’’ he said.
As for the game, Eberflus used it mainly to evaluate his depth behind the starters. With Fields out, backup P.J. Walker started, undrafted rookie Tyson Bagent finished the first half and Nathan Peterman handled the second half.
The Bears were up 17-7 early in the fourth quarter, but the Colts scored on three consecutive drives and went ahead 24-17 with 1:10 left. Peterman fumbled on the final play on a sack at the Colts’ 30-yard line.
The Bears will wrap up their preseason schedule at home Saturday against the Bills, and Eberflus said he’ll decide which starters, if any, need the additional work based on how they have performed in practices.
‘‘We’ll look at the whole camp to see where a guy is and see what kind of workload he’s put in, and we’ll see how he’s executing,’’ he said. ‘‘But when the No. 1 quarterback is in there, we usually have the No. 1 line with him. And we’re gonna base a lot of it off how this practice week goes.’’
