Matt Eberflus admits that this is where his team played badly on Sunday
The Chicago Bears had a rough dy in the office on Sunday against the Giants. You could make a case that this was there worst game so far, especially when you look at the number of injuries this Giants team had on both sides of the ball.
Well, here is what Bears senior writer Larry Mayer had to say on what was the biggest takeaway from the loss.
(1) Eberflus acknowledged that there were some plays on both sides of the ball that didn't embody the "HITS principle" he espouses.
Defensively, the Bears allowed quarterback Daniel Jones to rush for 68 yards and two touchdowns on six carries. Jones' TDs came on carbon copy bootleg runs of 21 and 8 yards, with the quarterback faking a handoff to the right and sprinting back to his left, badly fooling the defense.
"There were a few plays out there yesterday that were certainly that," Eberflus said. "Us not executing. Us not playing the way we do business. And we'll get that cleaned up. Those boot plays by the quarterback, those are certainly things we have to clean up. And then the quarterback keepers on those situational downs, where they do these zone-read quarterback keepers, we've got to do a better job of that as well."
One of the offensive plays that was an issue came when quarterback Justin Fields was sacked and fumbled early in the second quarter. Not realizing it was a live ball, a handful of Bears players failed to hustle after it, enabling Giants pass rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux to recover the fumble.
Eberflus conceded that it wasn't easy for the offensive linemen to spot the ball, but he revealed that he gave all the linemen and one receiver who were in the area loafs on the play.
"That one's a little bit harder because it's coming from behind," Eberflus said. "Typically when you have a fumble and I'm a defender, we're punching the ball, we're all pursuing the ball, we can see the ball.
"That's a little harder. It's like, 'hey, I'm in pass pro and then all of a sudden this thing drops from the sky, over my head and then it's there.' So I think Cody [Whitehair] was caught off guard, as all the linemen were. [But you've] got to be ready for it and jump on it, and have some reaction there."
Defensively, the Bears allowed quarterback Daniel Jones to rush for 68 yards and two touchdowns on six carries. Jones' TDs came on carbon copy bootleg runs of 21 and 8 yards, with the quarterback faking a handoff to the right and sprinting back to his left, badly fooling the defense.
"There were a few plays out there yesterday that were certainly that," Eberflus said. "Us not executing. Us not playing the way we do business. And we'll get that cleaned up. Those boot plays by the quarterback, those are certainly things we have to clean up. And then the quarterback keepers on those situational downs, where they do these zone-read quarterback keepers, we've got to do a better job of that as well."
One of the offensive plays that was an issue came when quarterback Justin Fields was sacked and fumbled early in the second quarter. Not realizing it was a live ball, a handful of Bears players failed to hustle after it, enabling Giants pass rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux to recover the fumble.
Eberflus conceded that it wasn't easy for the offensive linemen to spot the ball, but he revealed that he gave all the linemen and one receiver who were in the area loafs on the play.
"That one's a little bit harder because it's coming from behind," Eberflus said. "Typically when you have a fumble and I'm a defender, we're punching the ball, we're all pursuing the ball, we can see the ball.
"That's a little harder. It's like, 'hey, I'm in pass pro and then all of a sudden this thing drops from the sky, over my head and then it's there.' So I think Cody [Whitehair] was caught off guard, as all the linemen were. [But you've] got to be ready for it and jump on it, and have some reaction there."
Latest 10 stories
