There had to have been some thought in Matt Eberflus’ mind as he drove home from Soldier Field after the final game last season that it would only get better from here. There’s no way the Bears could ever again be as bad as the team he just finished coaching to an NFL-worst 3-14.
It was January, and the teardown was finally over. The team had the No. 1 overall pick and a wealth of salary-cap space to assemble a legitimate roster. Like every Bears fan, he had to be thinking the worst was over and the future was bright.
“Not really,” Eberflus told the Sun-Times. “I was just thinking about what we were gonna do the next day.”
That’s him. And that’s the only way to get through such a brutal first season as a head coach after working three decades to get that job. He’s deliberate, focusing predominantly on the next step rather than the next 50, and that was the ideal demeanor walking into a situation where he knew general manager Ryan Poles needed to bulldoze before building.
Eberflus’ mind was preoccupied not with the inevitable influx of talent coming to his roster, but with exit meetings and end-of-season analysis. It was a season of establishing the operation, from setting the weekly practice schedule to implementing his H.I.T.S. system as a way to quantify effort and execution, and he was committed to doing that all the way to the end before moving on to this season.
That didn’t produce measurable results, though. No matter how logical the H.I.T.S. program might be on paper, it sure looked a lot more effective when stars like Shaquille Leonard, DeForest Buckner and Kenny Moore ran it under Eberflus when he was defensive coordinator of the Colts.
And now, it’s sure to look more effective for the Bears with the arrival of wide receiver DJ Moore, linebacker Tremaine Edmunds and various other newcomers. Between offseason additions and internal improvement of a very young roster, the Bears expect to be better in every aspect this season.
And better talent will lead to a better manifestation of Eberflus’ vision.
“There’s some truth to that,” he said. “You’re taking guys that are talented and they’re now understanding what the standards are and they apply them to the game, and what you’ll see is winning football.
“When you get skill and talent, the buoy rises. Good things happen when you apply the standards and then you keep adding skill and talent into the roster.”
While Eberflus never so much as hinted at how outmanned his team was last season, he certainly knew the deficiencies better than anyone. He saw them up close every day.
He didn’t talk much, if at all, about pursuing the playoffs last season. Why would he? When asked if he bullheadedly went into last season believing the Bears could do that, as almost every coach would convince himself, he spun off to an answer about “trying to maximize everything” and always being optimistic. He knew what he had.
He seems ready for the next phase, which begins with the season opener Sunday against the Packers at Soldier Field. Eberflus doesn’t see a rash of disadvantages when he analyzes the individual matchups anymore. There are actually grounds for that optimism now.
There are grounds for ambition, too.
Eberflus has held a series of presentations by those in the organization who have been part of teams that made the Super Bowl. Poles brought in various assistants and scouts from the Chiefs’ championship run; assistant general manager Ian Cunningham helped the Eagles win a ring; defensive coordinator Alan Williams was on Tony Dungy’s staff when they beat the Bears in Super Bowl XLI; safeties coach Andre Curtis and wide receivers coach Tyke Tolbert won titles on other staffs.
Eberflus planned for the last speech to come from new linebacker T.J. Edwards, a player from Lake Villa who started every game for the Eagles during their run to the Super Bowl last season.
He wants his players and staff to hear the stories of those seasons so they know what it takes. For example, offensive coordinator Luke Getsy said one of his main takeaways was noting how many of those seasons started roughly and required the team to persevere and bounce back.
No one thinks the Bears are going to the Super Bowl this season. That’s not what’s happening here. Merely making the playoffs is a lofty goal at this stage.
But Eberflus wants them to adapt the approach those teams had, and that next-level mentality seems appropriate to him for this team. He laid the groundwork last season, and now he wants players thinking about how far they can take it.
“Great teams function a certain way,” Eberflus said. “We can learn from that.”
He added, “Every single time these guys get up, you learn something. Everybody thinks it’s easy to get to the top, but it’s not. There’s a lot of adversity. You’re gonna be down a bunch, or you’re gonna have to overcome a slide or have to make a run at the end. There’s a lot of things that go into it.”
As much as the Bears want to swing big this season, they’re still trying to figure out who fits the long-term blueprint with an eye on having this roster fully stocked by next season. Poles said two weeks ago he was about 75-80% of the way through checking all the boxes of his rebuild, though he said that number will fluctuate once the season starts and the Bears find out if they were right about certain players. Much of that hinges on Eberflus.
“Matt has been outstanding [in] his ability to develop players and push his staff, to develop human beings,” Poles said. “It’s our job to find talent that is primed to improve and help our football team, and then we hand that over [to Eberflus]. I have a lot of confidence in Flus and his staff to develop these players.”
Eberflus showed that ability last season by taking undrafted rookies like linebacker Jack Sanborn and cornerback Josh Blackwell and helping them become viable NFL players. Braxton Jones was a fifth-round pick from Southern Utah and started every game at left tackle. All three of those players held their spot even as the Bears poured new talent into the roster this season.
He squeezed everything out of those players. Imagine if he can do the same with someone like linebacker Tremaine Edmunds and cornerback Jaylon Johnson, two players who have been proven talents since the day they were drafted. If he can help good players become great, that’ll tremendously accelerate the Bears’ rebuild.
