After watching tape of Sunday's 18-15 loss to the Commanders in Washington, Bears coach Matt Eberflus on Monday discussed three things that stood out to him:
(1) Despite the loss, Eberflus found some positives.
He lauded the defense for keeping the Bears in the game by forcing the Commanders to settle for four field goals, including three that came on drives that reached the 7, 7 and 9.
Eberflus praised running back D'Andre Swift for injecting life into the offense and cutting the deficit to 12-7 with a 56-yard touchdown run late in the third quarter. The coach also liked how the Bears responded after the lost fumble at the goal line: the defense forced a three-and-out and the offense followed with a 10-play, 62-yard drive that culminated in a go-ahead touchdown on Roschon Johnson's 1-yard burst with :25 left in the game.
"The takeaway for us from the team meeting was, 'great response to the slow start; defense, way to keep us in there all game long;' and then, 'way to get those scores at the very end to be able to take the lead,'" Eberflus said. "And then we've just got to execute at the end there on our EOGs, end-of-game scenarios, with a better clip of execution there."
(2) Eberflus reiterated that he approved of handing off to Doug Kramer Jr. on third-and-goal from the 1 midway through the fourth quarter.
A reserve offensive lineman who lined up at fullback on the play, Kramer never secured the handoff from quarterback Caleb Williams and the Commanders recovered the fumble at the 3, temporarily preserving their 12-7 lead.
"We felt good about that play," Eberflus said. "We practiced that play. It was the first play from the 1. We had other plays to go to after that. We just have to be better with the execution of the handoff there."
Check out the action as the Bears battle the Washington Commanders at Northwest Stadium.
(3) Eberflus detailed what the Bears could have done better on the Hail Mary touchdown pass that enabled the Commanders to win the game as time expired.
With Washington trailing 15-12 at its own 48 with :02 remaining, rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels launched a long pass down the middle of the field. It was deflected by a cluster of players at the 3 back into the waiting arms of receiver Noah Brown in the end zone for a 52-yard touchdown.
"We've just got to do a better job of executing on the defensive side of the ball on the Hail Mary," Eberflus said. "The setup for us is just have a body on a body. We're picking guys up down the field. We just talked about that in the team meeting. Tyrique [Stevenson] has got to do a good job of putting his body on 85 (Brown) and boxing him out. We know he's got to do a good job of that. KB (Kevin Byard III) was the guy that was going to knock the ball down. We've got to do a good job executing in those critical moments. We've executed that play several times. We've just got to do a better job in that moment."
Eberflus explained why he didn't call a timeout before the Hail Mary.
"From our vantage point, everybody was lined up in the correct position and then we were just ready to go," he said. "We had already showed those diagrams before. We were ready to go for that play. We had practiced that multiple times a couple times a week and multiple times since we've been here. Again, it comes down to wiring into your responsibilities."
