The Bears struggled in multiple areas during Thursday night's 12-7 loss to the Commanders.
While the Bears dropped to 2-4, they have 11 days before their next game, allowing coach Matt Eberflus to reassess all aspects of the team.
"We're spending time during this mini-bye to evaluate each guy first," Eberflus said. "We come up with three things they're doing well right now and three things they need to improve on, and the plan for each guy fundamentally to improve on that. That's a very important piece for us to grow as a football team.
"So we're gonna do that coming up this weekend and then look at scheme, look at offensive scheme, defensive scheme and special teams. The exact same thing, things we're doing well, things we need to improve on and how we're gonna go about that, that's an important thing. And then we're gonna look at the lineups, where people are, are we putting guys in a position to succeed, is there anything that can create competition at any position on the football team? That's healthy for us, to be able to do that going forward. That's gonna be a big part of that as well. We are improving. We're looking to improve. We're gonna have a plan to improve, and we're gonna get better throughout the course of the season."
Improvements to red-zone efficiency and pass protection will be among the keys for the Bears going forward.
The offense reached Washington's 5-yard line three times Thursday but came up empty-handed each time. Quarterback Justin Fields said the lack of scoring came down to the offense not finishing on multiple plays.
Fields endured plenty of pressure in the pocket as the Bears allowed five sacks and 12 quarterback hits, but he was more concerned with the lack of team success, voicing his frustrations to the media after the game.
"Everybody is feeling this way," Fields said. "Everybody is mad. I mean, nobody is happy about this loss. We always get told that we're almost there, we're almost there. Like me, personally, I'm tired of being almost there, tired of being just this close. Feel like I've been hearing it for so long now. At the end of the day, all you can do is get back to work. That's the only reaction you have. Live and you learn, and get back to next week and keep going, keep getting better."
Eberflus said after meeting with Fields Friday morning, the quarterback is "in a good spot" and has "a great mindset going forward." The coach told Fields to focus on resetting his mind, keeping his eyes forward and looking at how the team can improve.
While Eberflus knew Fields was "real frustrated last night," he understood his emotions and wasn't concerned with how the quarterback reacted.
"This game, you have to play with passion," Eberflus said. "You have to play with emotion, you have to do that to play it the right way. You just do and you have to put yourself out there, and every time you play this game, a piece of you is left on the football field. It's just the way it is. If you don't do that it'sー you can see it. It's not a spirited group. We have a spirited group. We play with passion, we play with emotion, and that has to be done. That's why we have the 24-hour rule. You've got to reset and decompress a little bit and then move forward to the next performance. I think that's an important thing for everyone to realize, not just the quarterback."
