CHICAGO (670 The Score) — Matt Eberflus was feeling it Sunday at Soldier Field after the Bears’ 28-13 victory over the Lions, and who could blame him?
His football team did something it had never done since he became head coach in 2022, finally winning back-to-back games. And Eberflus allowed himself to enjoy it enough to have something in short supply these days at Halas Hall: fun.
The grin on Flus’ face when asked about Bears safety Jaquan Brisker’s 17-tackle performance revealed a former hard-hitting Toledo linebacker who allowed himself a rare trip down memory lane.
“Isn’t that crazy?" Eberflus said of Brisker’s numbers. “Sounds like my college stats."
Everyone in the interview room chuckled.
Smile, Chicago. Savor this moment. It has been way too rare for far too long when it comes to Bears games.
Go ahead and call beating the Lions a signature victory for Eberflus because, arguably, the rest have been done with invisible ink.
But this one threatens to leave a mark.
The Bears don’t have to make a decision on their head coach and quarterback until they have to make a decision, which leaves four more games’ worth of evidence to evaluate. Even if that decision has been made in the minds of many fans and media, what happened Sunday gave everyone something else to consider. That’s not a hot-take opinion as much as fact.
What if the defense plays as well as it did again Sunday for the final month? What if Justin Fields finishes with four games as impactful as the last three?
Thanks to the bye week, the Bears haven’t lost a game in three weeks. For a team as familiar with futility as the Bears, it seems like three months.
“It’s been a long time coming," Eberflus said. “I think it’s a big deal."
Nobody kept their jobs by virtue of what happened Sunday, but nobody guaranteed they’d be losing them either. The discussion has been tabled another week. Can we handle that nuanced conversation in a passionate football city?
“It’s just like anything," Eberflus admitted. “You want to see the proof of it. It’s proof for those guys, proof for our staff, proof for our fans."
It has been so long since the Bears resembled anything close to a team making progress, it’s honestly hard to know how to feel. It’s harder to know whether to really believe. But the Lions are 9-4, a playoff team, one of the NFC’s toughest, and the Bears tamed them impressively – and outplayed them overall in eight quarters against them this season.
This was why the Bears said they hired Eberflus, to put together a dominant defense that complements an offense led by a dynamic dual-threat quarterback. This was the defense making Eberflus’ strongest case yet to bring him back for a third season.
This was Fields reminding the Bears, the league and a crowd of 62,185 what special looks like, the rare combination of speed and power that we’ve seen far too infrequently in his third NFL season. This was Fields playing his third straight acceptable game, qualifying as the kind of consistency that had eluded him.
Fields led the Bears in rushing with 58 yards on 12 carries and completed 19 of 33 passes for 223 yards, a touchdown and an 88.3 passer rating. Aesthetically, it was much easier to watch than the egg toss the Bears' passing game became in Minnesota when they threw 21 passes either at or behind the line of scrimmage. Strategically, it exploited holes in the Lions’ leaky secondary because Fields knew where to look.
On Wednesday, Fields raised eyebrows at the podium by invoking faith as his bedrock. Four days later, he gave Chicago reasons to believe he still can be the the quarterback the Bears can win because of. Over his last five games, Fields has thrown for 1,226 yard and 10 touchdowns while rushing for 305 more. That’s convincing.
There will be throws that Fields regrets when watching the tape of Sunday but others that revealed how dangerous he remains.
On fourth-and-13 in the third quarter, for instance, when Fields seized the moment. Fields saw top receiver DJ Moore isolated in man coverage against Lions cornerback Jerry Jacobs and had a free play after officials flagged Detroit for being offsides at the snap. Fields induced the offsides with a hard count, the kind of tricks with the cadence that savvy veterans pull. The 38-yard strike Fields threw to Moore was as timely as the 39-yard connection the two had against the same Lions defense in November. Moore hauled it in for the touchdown and kept running down the tunnel in the northwest end zone.
“A big momentum shifter," Eberflus said of the touchdown that broke a 13-13 tie.
Fields also had a 41-yard completion to tight end Cole Kmet, another strike to Moore on a deep out route and a couple passes to Darnell Mooney that kept the Bears’ No. 2 receiver involved.
Overall, Fields showed progress by any measure with his arm and, not surprisingly, made the deepest impression with his legs.
On Fields’ 11-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter, he displayed all the athleticism people cite when describing him as special. You can’t coach or stop what Fields did on that scoring play. With several Lions defenders trying to destroy the angle, several failed to close the distance against a quarterback with a gear that not every running back can find.
“I saw green grass there and just ran," Fields said.
Any argument to bring Fields back for 2024 will include that touchdown run as an example. Or how about that impossible 19-yard scramble on third down in the first quarter? There’s a reason Fields became only the third NFL quarterback to surpass 2,000 rushing yards in his first three seasons – and it’s the same one that explains the offense executing as well as it did.
With at least one notable exception.
On fourth-and-1 at the Lions' 38-yard line early in the second quarter while leading 10-0, the Bears went for it. That part made sense, whether it was a decision made by Eberflus’ gut on the sideline or by the team of analysts taking up a row in the press box. What came next was as debatable as it was predictable. The Bears got cute.
With Moore in the backfield, Fields lined up behind center and looked poised for a sneak. But after taking the snap, he faked a handoff and pitched to Moore, who couldn’t get to the perimeter. Unblocked, Lions safety Ifeatu Melifonwu chased down Moore and end Josh Paschal provided more resistance for no gain. The Bears turned the ball over on downs and, more significantly, lost momentum with the possession.
“It was a play we liked," Eberflus said. “They did a good job."
From section 330 to social media platforms, fans attacked offensive coordinator Luke Getsy for another bad call. The immediate outcry reflected how badly Getsy has lost the benefit of the doubt. It didn’t matter that the play put the ball in the hands of the Bears’ best offensive player or that it would’ve worked if blocked properly. All that really mattered was Getsy finding another fourth-down play on the gadget page of his playbook. Fair enough. Frankly, Getsy has earned the skepticism.
Whatever the case, the Lions took advantage. They responded with a nine-play, 61-yard touchdown drive that ended with Bears safety Eddie Jackson making a business decision. With dynamic shifty running back Jahmyr Gibbs on the brink of breaking into the end zone, Jackson made a feeble attempt at an arm tackle, conceding the touchdown instead of trying to force a fumble. It looked all too familiar from Jackson, once a Pro Bowl safety and now an unwilling tackler.
That was about the only aspect defensively worthy of a complaint.
The Lions arrived ranked fourth in passing and rushing yards while averaging 27 points per game, but they left rankled. They gained a paltry 267 yards. The Bears defense continued to thrive with Eberflus pushing the right buttons, and Chicago has given up only 23 points during its unexpected two-game winning streak.
Brisker flew around with abandon, making those whopping 17 tackles and providing tight coverage. Cornerback Jaylon Johnson picked Goff off again, and cornerback Tyrique Stevenson sure didn’t look like a rookie. Edge rushers Montez Sweat, the multiplier, and Yannick Ngakoue, who had a sack, consistently collapsed the pocket. Linebackers Tremaine Edmunds and T.J. Edwards, who recovered a third-quarter fumble, wreaked havoc by design. And everything up front started with defensive tackles Justin Jones and Gervon Dexter Jr., who both collaborated with Sweat for sacks in the fourth quarter.
Trading for Sweat in late October changed the Bears defense and the trajectory of this season. The Bears are 3-2 since then. All the attention that opposing offensive lines must pay Sweat, in theory and practice, makes every other Bears pass rusher a half-step quicker. Sweat also plays the run sturdy enough to affect first and second downs too. So for as much credit as Eberflus will receive for his role in improving the defense, general manager Ryan Poles deserves even more. Poles made the deal with the Commanders to get Sweat, as he was willing to give up draft capital for the second year in a row at the trade deadline even after losing the Chase Claypool deal in 2022.
Goff has every reason to hate Soldier Field. It was five years ago there this week that he threw four interceptions for the Rams in a 15-6 loss on cold, wintry night. On Sunday, a chilly day but hardly Iditarod weather, Goff struggled again, completing 20 of 35 passes for 161 yards, one touchdown, two interceptions and a 54.6 passer rating – his lowest of the season.
This wasn’t Goff’s day.
It belonged to the Bears, who made it hard to tell which NFC North team was planning for the playoffs and which one already has many people thinking about the 2024 NFL Draft.
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David Haugh is the co-host of the Mully & Haugh Show from 5-10 a.m. weekdays on 670 The Score. Click here to listen. Follow him on Twitter @DavidHaugh.