After watching tape of Sunday night's 19-13 loss to the Texans in Houston, Bears coach Matt Eberflus discussed three things that stood out to him in the game:
(1) The Bears played complementary football at times in both halves.
Midway through the second quarter, Tory Taylor's 54-yard punt pinned the Texans at their own 13. The defense followed by forcing a three-and-out, capped by Tremaine Edmunds' third-down sack of quarterback C.J. Stroud. Taking over at the Houston 49 after a punt, the Bears offense took advantage of the excellent field position to cut the deficit to 13-10 on Khalil Herbert's 2-yard touchdown run.
"I do believe that right before the half, we had some good, complementary football going there," Eberflus said. "We had a nice punt and pin, got the ball back to our offense, we ended up scoring at the very end there."
In the fourth quarter, the Texans were in position to extend their 19-10 lead on first-and-goal from the 4 when Andrew Billings forced running back Cam Akers to fumble and Kevin Byard III recovered at the 3. The offense followed with a 61-yard drive that resulted in Cairo Santos' 54-yard field goal, closing the gap to 19-13.
The defense followed with another stop, forcing a three-and-out to give the Bears offense a chance to win the game. But after reaching their own 47 on Caleb Williams' 27-yard pass to Rome Odunze, the drive stalled.
"[We] did a really good job playing good defense in the second half," Eberflus said, "giving our guys a chance to kick that field goal on one drive. Then we put ourselves in position again with the defense, in terms of getting the ball back for our offense back down there and win it."
(2) The running game needs to be more productive.
The Bears rushed for 71 yards on 22 carries against the Texans, but Williams accounted for 44 of those yards on five attempts. Running backs D'Andre Swift (14 carries for 18 yards), Travis Homer (1-6) and Khalil Herbert (2-3) combined to gain just 27 yards on 17 attempts.
"Run game comes down to the basics," Eberflus said. "It comes down to your combo blocks. It comes down to guys working their helmet in the right spot, staying square, working to the second level, spotting up to the second level, sticking and staying on the second level.
"The perimeter blocking needs to improve with our push cracks, our crack blocking, blocking on the perimeter for perimeter screens. It just comes down to detail. It comes down to us being consistent as a group to be able to get that done. We've got the guys, we've got the coaches, we've got the players. We've just got to be better at the details, be better at the fundamentals of running the ball."
A more productive rushing attack would make the play-action pass more effective and put the Bears in fewer predictable passing situations.
"I do believe when you're able to run the ball and move the ball and stay ahead of the chains, you don't get those types of pressures in that where we know you're all pass protection," Eberflus said. "We have to do a really good job with that coming forward and not creating those distances for us there that aren't favorable for us on offense that we can rely more on the quick passing, rely more on to convert third downs, and really getting first downs on first and second down, not even getting to third down. That's what we're searching for. We're hunting for that."
The Bears have had to run at least one third-down play on 17 of 20 possessions this season, with the only exceptions being two end-of-half situations and an interception Sunday night in Houston that came on second down.
(3) For the second straight game, Eberflus was pleased with the defense's dominant second-half performance but wants to see the unit play well for 60 minutes.
After allowing the Texans to score on four of five first-half possessions to build a 16-10 lead, the Bears held Houston to three points in the second half.
It was a similar story in the season opener a week earlier when the Bears shut out the Titans in the second half after permitting 17 points in the first two quarters.
"For our football team, it's the consistency is what we're searching for," Eberflus said. "If we can play at a high level the entire game, I think that's going to be beneficial for our football team.
"Every single week we have a different set of circumstances in terms of the skill we're playing against, the design of the offense we're playing against, so it's always going to be a challenge for us to be on the details as a group.
"This is only a small sample size of two games where we did a nice job of playing better in the second half, but again, we have to do a good job of starting fast."
